Making a website users can create accounts on.

Forum Moderators: phranque

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Making a website users can create accounts on.

ocon

12:00 am on Nov 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

I have a website I would like to build. On it, users would be able to create an account, and have access see and edit their account information.

What I would like to do has the same functionality of many websites, like AdWords. Users can create an account, and then setup different campaigns and change settings on those campaigns. While users have access to their information, nobody else has access to read or view it.

Do I have to build such a site from scratch, or is there some kind of open source software I can build upon?

ocon

12:15 am on Nov 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

Would something like CMS work for me? What about Drupal or Zend or CakePHP?

bill

2:49 am on Nov 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

There are a number of services like OpenID, Google Friend Connect, Facebook Connect and others that allow a single login to work across sites. These are supported via plug-ins or modules on most popular CMS platforms.

ocon

9:35 pm on Nov 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

Thanks for the response. I could go with something off site, but I think I'd actually like to keep it local.

I guess what I'm getting at is I could code a user login script myself, and for it to be ok using some of the tutorials out on the web, but for this new site, I want to try a new approach, and see if there are pre-existing tools out there, instead of reinventing the wheel, for everything.

Let me put it this way. I'm not, but let's pretend I want to build a banking website like WellsFargo, or a personal finance management website like Mint. While there are some public pages, maybe something like brochureware, the real functionality of the site is behind the login screen.

I've worked with WordPress for blogs and MediaWiki for wikis, and I like the idea that I can save time and money by dropping in an extension to perform some kind of new function, or easily contract new functionality to programmers who have a deep understanding of the site's code. Also, I can easily drop in a pre-made template from a site like TemplateMonster, or provide a better framework for custom design work from a designer that has a well founded understanding of the site's code. If I created the site from scratch, I wouldn't have these benefits.

While I might be able to rig up WordPress or MediaWiki to make some kind of "behind the login-in screen" website, leaching off those site's abilities to generate user accounts and their ability to see their settings pages, that's not how those site's were designed, and any resulting product would be that much weaker.

Is there some kind of opensource software that would perform this kind of functionality that I'm looking for? Either directly, or some kind of framework where I could drop in some kind of extension into it?

Thanks

republicall

11:26 am on Dec 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

well, for my website i have installed an forum and included in an iframe. So my users log in my forum when they want enything.

[edited by: phranque at 11:35 am (utc) on Dec. 3, 2009]
[edit reason] No urls, please. See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

phranque

11:40 am on Dec 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], republicall!

i believe ocon was looking for something that would work across several products such as a blog and a wiki.

dailypress

2:47 pm on Dec 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I would say Drupal is a good place to start. They have many modules/applications. I dont know much about other CMS's but so far Ive been very happy with Drupal.

I think it is more complicated that WordPress or other CMS's but if you take the time to learn Drupal you wont regret it. Its a good investment ...