Creating a User's Area....

Ok, this is my next project. I want to use ASP to create a user log-in. After that I want that to log them in to their own customized user's area. This will be a place where they can select and save color schemes and things like that. My problem is that I don't have a clue as where to start with this and don't know ANY ASP... But.. I need someone to point me in the right direction. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I'd say start here: http://www.w3schools.com/asp/asp_intro.asp

You're going to need to read up on using forms, cookies, and either working with text files or databases.

Kulegamr.... If you have not already got an ASP book, then you can easily learn ASP in two weeks with this book:-
http://www.webforumz.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=876

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Yeah, I saw that book and can't afford the price on it... Well I am looking for it in bookstores, but can't afford over the internet. What happens is my dad sees me ordering online and just about kills me. haha. So I gotta keep this limited to where I can find. I am going to bookstores today to search for it. My campus bookstore actually has a VERY good selection of Web Language books. I was suprized to find so many different varieties of books they offer. Well, thanks for the tips, I am going now.

Here's a general outline of how something like this works.

1) Create a database table to store the login information in. At the least you'll want to store the username and password. You might want to add different levels of user (for example so you can administer the user table) like level 105=normal user, 713=admin, etc. Use random things for the security level so the user can't hack their cookies to get admin status.

2) Create a HTML form that posts to an ASP page, passing the login information via POST

3) The login script checks the database to see if there's a record with the username and password from the form

4) If their login info is good, set a temporary cookie on their browser that says they're logged in (and optionally what their level is) and redirect them to the secure area

5) Create a small script that checks the cookies to see if a user is logged in. If they aren't is should redirect them to the login page. Also check to see if their permission level is ok for the particular page. Use server-side includes to include this script at the beginning of every page in the secure area, then people can't just skip the login if they know the address of the other pages.

6) Create a set of pages to edit/add/delete the login information so you can create users without having to edit the database directly. Secure this page to only admin-level users. Once you build one of this type of table editing page you'll find a million uses for it.

That's the basic idea. Now that you've got a logged in user you can serve up some content that's customized to them or whatever else you like. Of course you can do something fancier once you get it working, like limiting the number of times someone can try logging in/sending password reminder emails, etc.

Thanks Catalyst... this is actually very helpful to me and points me EXACTLY in the right direction. Is there some way we can make a tutorial of this as I get it to work? I just bought an ASP book that teaches me everything from HTML to VBScript to ASP. It also hits how to create basic databases. I bought this after talking to a guy that does ASP programming and he said its the best one you can find without going on the internet... Well, I am going to start learning and will post back once I get stuck... Thanks.

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/

4GuysFromRolla is also a great place for ASP information. Although their search engine isn't the greatest. I use the "Just Search 4 Guys" because then they use Google.

jakyra

Thanks... I got an ASP book That is teaching me ALL of it.. It is very detailed and gives a 2 page walk-through for everything you learn. It's really cool. What's even better is that with this book I am actually learning it where I can already create my own code without any of the book's help. It's fairly nice. The Book is Active Server Pages 3.0: Your Visual Blue Prints for developing interactive Web sites .