Tech Question For Any Programmer Types...

[Lee]

Is there a way to create a simple .php script that i can create a form from to allow a member to hit a page first (or have an actual 'login' form on my paysites) that will read the .htpassword file created by CCBill and allow the member access to my members area if they enter a valid user/pass and if not, have them redirected to back to the tour page?

I actually want to design a couple of sites that have boxes on the tour pages for a username/password and actually have the user redirected to the members area, hopefully still via StrongBox.

How difficult would this be to do?

Regards,

Lee

[raymor]

Is there a way to create a simple .php script that i can create a form from to allow a member to hit a page first (or have an actual 'login' form on my paysites) that will read the .htpassword file created by CCBill and allow the member access to my members area if they enter a valid user/pass and if not, have them redirected to back to the tour page?

I actually want to design a couple of sites that have boxes on the tour pages for a username/password and actually have the user redirected to the members area, hopefully still via StrongBox.

How difficult would this be to do?

Regards,

Lee

I don't think you need to create any PHP script or anything. If I'm understanding you
right, you just need to copy and paste some HTML. It sounds like you want to
a) replace the default Strongbox "failed login" page with a tour type page and
b) copy and paste the log in form into some tour pages.

For a), showing the user a sales / tour page when they enter their password wrong:

Either method 1:
In the config.pl, adjust at line #76:
# URL to send them to if they enter a bad password
$errpage = "http://$host/sblogin/badlogin.shtml";

or method 2:
Rename the default sblogin/badlogin.shtml to sblogin/badlogin.default.
Upload your own tour page, perhaps with some elements copied from the default,
like the "try again" and "customer service" links, included.

For b), putting a log in form on a page:
Copy and paste the form from the default log in page. You'll probably want to
remove the "goodpage" field, or set it to your members' URL. If your tour pages
are PHP, copy from login.php.

[raymor]

Here's some follow up. When your done, email us and Ali can check that
no minor details were missed.

When changing your "failed login" page to a sales page, remember that page
will be shown to your paying members when they typo their password or don't
remember it or whatever. It's a very good idea to tell the user on that page
"your log in details could not be verified" rather than just redirecting them
to some random sales pitch when they log in. Also we suggest a customer service link on that page. You might have some tour / sales stuff for people
who just randomly type in some user name and password even though they
haven't joined, or for customers who are expired, but 99% of the people who
type in a user name and password are paying customers trying to log in so
just sending them to a typical tour page with no hint of what's wrong or
what to do about it doesn't make a lot of sense. Consider if your bank or
affiliate program did that - you go to log in to your bank account and get sent
to some sales pitch for mortgage refinance. That would be a bit disconcerting,
I'd think, unless the page also clearly said something like "Your user name
and password were not entered correctly. Click here to try again or here to
contact customer service."

[Lee]

Thats great, i never even realized i could do something like that with StrongBox, thanks so much for the reply Ray

Regards,

Lee

[HunkyLuke]

hehe... I just hit Ray up with a bunch of strange setup questions too, and his response was "yes" with links to the pages showing exactly how to do these things with strongbox. Gotta love that!

[raymor]

One more thing on putting a log in form on tour pages. You can,
if you want to, turn off the Turing image to make it suit the design of
your site better. The three settings for the Turing image (captcha) are
explained here:
http://www.bettercgi.com/cgi-bin/wik...l?Turing_Image

You'll notice the owner's manual is a wiki, so if there is something we
could have worded more clearly or something feel free to edit it, or to
tell how you've made use of a certain feature as an example or whatever.