Independent Digital

It’s easy and secure.



Requirements

It is assumed that you have a working knowledge of HTML and php and have the necessary PEAR packages installed. You will also need a database (I have used MySql here but you can use others, just make sure that you then install the necessary MDB2 driver for that database). The PEAR packages should include:

Auth - the authentication package

MDB2 - the database abstraction layer

MDB2_Driver_mysql - the MySql MDB2 driver

HTML_Quickform - which creates and processes HTML forms

HTML_Common2 - the abstract base class for HTML classes




The basic structure of the website

I used the Andreas02 template created by Andreas Viklund for this tutorial. He has some greate templates, some of which are open source.

This imaginary website consists of 4 pages, the main home or index page, a login page, a register page and a members page. I used the same HTML template (andreas02) for all the pages.



Navigational structure

The index page has a sidebar containing the login and register links. The user must register before he can log in. The login link takes the user to the login page where, on successfully logging in, the user is taken to the members page. The members page has a logout button which logs the user out and returns him to the index page. The register link takes the user to the register page. Successful registration takes the user to the login page. A failed registration takes the user back to the registration page and displays an error message. A failed login returns the user to the index page and displays an error message.



The Index page

This is basically the home page of the website and consists almost entirely of HTML. It is the standard Andreas02 template with a few php lines and 2 added links. The file is then saved as a php file.



The Login page

The login page uses the same Andreas02 template and includes some php code. This code displays a Quickform login form consisting of the username and password text boxes and a login button. On completing the form, the form is processed and the username and password are compared to those stored in the database. If a match is made, the user is redirected to the members page. If no match is made, the user is returned to the login page with an error message included in the URL. The login page uses Quickform to create and process the login form and MDB2 to connect to and query the database. It also uses Auth to authenticate the user.



The Register page

The register page uses the Andreas02 template and includes some php code. The code displays a Quickform consisting of the username and password text boxes and the register button. On completing the form, the form is processed and the database is querried to see whether the username exists. If it does then the user is returned to the register page with an error message stating that the user exists. If the user does not exist then the username and password are added to the database and the user is redirected to the login page. If the data is not added successfully to the database, then the user is redirected to the register page.



The Members page

The members page uses the Andreas02 template and includes some php code. The code displays a Quickform logout button. When clicked, it destroys cookies, sessions, flushes the output buffer, logs the user out and directs him to the index page.

Download the file containing all the files for the imaginary website here

  Secure_site.zip (34.1 KiB, 223 hits)

. Useful to analyse the use of the php code (commented) which shows how to use Auth, MDB2 and Quickform within a website.

Hope you find this short tutorial useful. Let me know if you need any help using Auth, Quickform, MDB2 or Flexy.

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