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[wahoojeff]

Not sure if anyone has any experience with this or not, but here goes.

Here's a hypothetical situation:
I have a bunch of content on a website, which is updated monthly. I want users to give me their contact information, via a form, so I can add them to a database. I don't mind if people come back to the page with the new content on it via a bookmark during the month that it's new (March, for example). However, once the month is over, and Apri's content is new, I want them to have to fill out the form again, so if they try to link directly to the new stuff, they are redirected to the form.

Would cookies work in this situation? Does this even make any sense? Is there a better way? Any thoughts would really be appreciated.

 

[colonelR]

Hello

Hypothetically I don't think many people would appreciate having to fill their information into a form every month just to see the new content.

Perhaps allowing them to create a Username/Password the first time they fill in the form and letting them login each month would be better.

Why would you want the same people to fill out the form again anyway ?

Good luck

 

[wahoojeff]

They have to log in again because we need to track who is using the site to let people sponsoring the content know that it's being accessed, and by whom. The username abd password thing would probably work, but I am unfamiliar with how to set that up. I do have the ability to use Access databases, however. Any ideas?

 

[wahoojeff]

Double Post...

 

[colonelR]

HI

Yep I'd definitely go for a registration form that collects the name, address etc & creates a user account.

Subsequent visits use a logon form which writes a date (for example) to the database - that way the date of the last logon would be stored in your access database and you could produce your reports for your sponsors.

So..

In MSAccess you need a table called USERS containing fields NAME, ADDRESS, EMAIL, USERNAME (unique) , PASSWORD, LAST LOGON. + any other personal details you want to collect !

On your Web Server you need to ensure the database has write access

On your website you need

1. A registration form that will send info to a validation page (see 2 below)
2. A registration Validation page - checks that fields are filled correctly & that the requested username is available. Validation page either returns an error or posts the info into the database. If you're using ASP then this will be an ASP page.
3. A logon form on your homepage - this checks username & password & if ok then posts todays date into LAST LOGON field - also moves user to 'members/content' area. Also an ASP page.
4. You'll also need to protect your content pages from users trying to access them without entering a password - use ASP


Simple eh - if you're not familiar with ASP then Macromedia Ultradev will do all this for you in minutes !!