"Instant Access" payment question

[savageskrew]

ok,please don't laugh at me but I'm really new at this and I have a question (I HAVE learned that the best places to come for help are forums like this so maybe someone here can help me).

I want to create a "members only" feature on my webpage. How do I make it available after the access fee has been paid? Would I use the feature from my ecommerce payment site that re-directs to a new URL after payment is made or do I do something else?

help...I'm not a stupid girl...really I'm not.

[savageskrew]

ok,please don't laugh at me but I'm really new at this and I have a question (I HAVE learned that the best places to come for help are forums like this so maybe someone here can help me).

I want to create a "members only" feature on my webpage. How do I make it available after the access fee has been paid? Would I use the feature from my ecommerce payment site that re-directs to a new URL after payment is made or do I do something else?

help...I'm not a stupid girl...really I'm not.

[stlewis]

This goes up a gear from the free-to-all kind of site.

You have two options.

1. Password-protecting a folder on the site and emailing the password to registered users. This is fine but you have no way to stop paid-up users giving the password to other people.

2. Using some technology to force visitors to the restricted pages to logon; each user has hir/her own id and password. This would typically require a database eg MySQL or SQL Server and a scripting language eg PHP or ASP. The scripts have to test that the user is still logged on.

I have used phpbb2 (a bit like infopop used here) and now successfully got a script working which reuses the logon functionality of phpbb2 for other functions. In the spirit of open source, I can provide this if you go for a php/MySQL option.

Instead, you may be able to plug into some e-commerce software, but I don't know enough about particular products.

Hope that helps.

www.bricksandbrass.co.uk

[rsallen]

You need a database and hosting on a server which supports ASP.

I suggest that when you are capturing data from enrollee that you redirect them to a page to complete user information and create a password. Make them use an email address for their logon and you will never have to worry about validating user name input against the database. (unless of course they sign up again for some reason) Anyway you make that a one time event and within your site provide a link to an asp page where they can update or change user information. It is not terribly difficult to do.

Using sessions - ensures that when a session times out the user must log in again. This helps during periods where the user is logged in and walks away from the PC.

I get a lot of my coding help from several books and websites. Wrox has some great books on ASP and I use these sites a lot:
4 guys from Rolla
as well as
CodeHound.

Hope this helps a little!

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