Dreamweaver CS5.5: The Missing Manual

Chapter 27. Advanced Dynamic Site Features

Dreamweaver’s basic database capabilities are impressive, but there may come a time when you need to dig deeper into the program to build successful web applications. Dreamweaver’s advanced features let you, the mere mortal, do things web-development pros do every day, like password-protect pages, display (or hide) content based on database results, and access information from forms, cookies, and URLs.

Password-Protecting Web Pages

Although Dreamweaver lets you create web pages that let others add, edit, and delete records from a database, your e-business wouldn’t last very long if just anyone could remove orders from your online ordering system or view your customers’ credit card information. And certainly your boss wouldn’t be happy if someone got into the staff database and changed his title to Chief Bozo. For these and other reasons, Dreamweaver provides a simple set of tools to lock your pages from prying eyes.

Dreamweaver’s User Authentication server behaviors can password-protect any page on your site. With them, you can limit areas of your site to registered users only, let customers review and update their contact information, create maintenance pages accessible only to administrators, or personalize pages with custom messages (“Welcome back, Dave!”).

To password-protect pages, you need to get several elements in order:

• A database table containing the authorized users’ login information.

• A registration form for adding new users to the ...