Password protection

[Stitson]

Hello,

I am using FP98, although it seems I will have to upgrade.
Currently I have a small home page with no FP extensions in use (the
ISP doesn't support them for such sites). I am considering upgrading
to a full domain site with the ISP. The main entry page will be open
access to anyone, but once inside the site there will be
password-protected pages for paid-up subscribers.

This is the information provided by the ISP: "web server supports
e-commerce and dynamic site needs, including MS-SQL, ASP, Perl/CGI,
PHP4.0 and Frontpage 2000 extensions."

I suppose this means FP98 can't be used to set up password pages (I'm
enquiring about this). First, will upgrading to a recent version of
FP cause any problems with my existing FP web files? When I
originally installed FP98 I had terrible trouble getting it to work,
and I don't want to go through that again.

Second, with no knowledge of ASP or anything other method mentioned
above, what is the best way I can set up password-protected pages?
The general idea is that when an individual (or most likely, in my
case, a school) subscribes, I would send them a password and a
username. The school would use this to enter the protected pages.

It would be useful if teachers and students logging on from a school
network PC in a classroom or the library would not have to provide the
password each time - once the school IT administrator, or whoever, has
entered the right password (from some sort of pop-up window?),
probably at its network server level, anyone using a network PC
attached to it could then enter the passworded pages. This would also
mean that individual teachers and students could not alter the
password to suit themselves, causing mayhem.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,
Roger Stitson.

 

[Andrew Murray]

If your ISP supports ASP - it is probably worth while getting that enabled and
MYSql as well, and have frontpage extensions enabled if you intend to use those
Frontpage features otherwise, you can use third party products for things like
the form handler, photo album, search engine and so on.

www.hotscripts.com has tonnes of free scripts for what you might need including
password protection scripts and user-management kind of things. Frontpage I
believe is limited in this way so third-party products ar probably the way to go.
Frontpage does have a 'user subscription' (or registration?) type thing but
obviously utilises the frontpage extensions here.

If you are not familiar with ASP etc, with ready-made scripts basically you just
upload them to your htdocs folder or the folder scripts can be run from (if
specified by your ISP). e.g. like with UNIX servers you run scripts from cgi-bin,
with Windows servers, your ISP may prefer you run scripts from a certain folder
or have set up your account so you can only run them from one particular folder).

Anyway - there's no time like the present for learning the basics of ASP and
databases - it is powerful stuff once you begin to understand it....but if you
want simplicity, I'm not sure how you'd go about it and not sure Frontpage is all
that useful in that respect.

Check hotscripts out anyway (link above)....you might be suprised at how easy the
scripts are to install, and finding one that suits your needs.

If you're using FP 98, it won't work with FP 2000 extensions, unless you upgrade
to FP 2002, in which case it will work with the 2000 extensions but only the
features supported by those extensions.

 

[Guest]

Not sure about the password page but I can tell you I went from FP98 to FP2003 with no problems. FP2003 is a litle different than 98 but worth it. Seems like PW Server works a lot better

Good luck

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

You have to be using IIS, not PWS as it is not supported or available on the versions of Windows
required to run FP2003

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

Not sure about the password page but I can tell you I went from FP98 to FP2003 with no problems.

FP2003 is a litle different than 98 but worth it. Seems like PW Server works a lot better.

 

[Stitson]

Thanks for all responses.

I'm currently looking at a domain site provider in Sydney, Australia,
that has a "control panel" that operates over the net. It contains
many options, including password protection - I've looked at their
video demo, and it may be what is required.

The site is:
http://www.digitalpacific.com.au/

In the meantime I'll take some advice, here, and have a look at ASP.
I have some basic (very basic) knowledge of Visual Basic, which could
be helpful.

Thanks,

Roger Stitson.