Client log-in dialog box

Freeway
1

I have an FTP with a username and password, how can I make a username and password box on a page?

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Hi Chris

Insert>Text field

Then you can change its properties in the inspector window ‘Item output settings’. There is a tickbox if you want to make it a password entry field or not.

From there it all depends what you want to do with the information - usually Page>Form setup

David

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Sometime around 10/12/07 (at 16:08 -0500) DeltaDave said:

From there it all depends what you want to do with the information -
usually Page>Form setup

And then a whole load of scripting, usually. Without some kind of
script for the form to work with it won’t do anything.

Chris, if you want to make a client able to upload via FTP then
teaching them how to use a standard FTP client application might well
be best.

If you want to make a file upload form in a web page there are ways
to achieve this, but it isn’t something I’d recommend doing for the
general public to use as it represents a major potential security
risk.

k

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4

Do you want the result to be that the client is logged into the FTP
site? How are they then accessing the files in it?

You could try the following (totally untested):

Make a form, set the method to GET and the action to an error page
stating that JavaScript is needed to use the form. While you’re in
the Form Setup dialog, add the following:

Name: onsubmit
Value: return window.location.href=‘ftp://’ + escape
(this.login.value) + ‘:’ + escape(this.password.value) +
‘@your.ftp.server’;

That value part should be all one line, despite what Mail makes of it.

In order for this to work as coded above, you have to name your login
and password fields just that. You also have to change the
your.ftp.server part to your actual server – and if you are then
going to shunt the clients off to a particular folder, you should add
that to the address, separated with slashes, just as you would with a
web address.

Now there’s a huge IF in this whole thing. What does the client
browser make of an ftp:// address? That whole thing is left up the
browser. Some browsers actually show a list of files and you can
navigate and download files just as you would an Apache server with
fancy indexing turned on. Other (cough, Safari) browsers hand the
request off to the Finder, which dutifully tries, then locks up or
stalls so badly that you wish it had actually crashed and gotten it
over with.

If you’re looking to show a client a nice listing of files, and
password-restrict that view, there are lots of other ways to go about
it. If you look at my Actions repository, you’ll see one:

http://freewaypro.com/actions/downloads/

There’s a script in that folder which just looks at the contents of
the folder, decides what’s safe to show the world, and then creates a
nice listing. It can be configured to descend into folders
recursively, so you can organize the files into folders and still use
just one script to display folder listings for all. I have the script
available for download in that same folder: file_list.php.zip.

Walter

On Dec 10, 2007, at 2:36 PM, Chris Poisson wrote:

I have an FTP with a username and password, how can I make a
username and password box on a page?

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5

Walter, Dave,

Here’s the whole deal. I have an ftp for client viewing right now, and I send them the username and password via email. This is just for viewing work in progress, not for upload to me.

I use Transmit to upload WMVs and remove them after the client’s get them as they take up a lot of space sometimes and it costs more money if my total site goes over 500 megs.

So this week I was re-designing the whole site and trying to scale it all back, and plan on updating it more often. In looking at some of my competitor’s sites, they all have client login pages and there’s two text boxes for people to type in the username and password.

This is all I’m trying to do, very simple, I hope. The manual said I would need to make some code to do this, they weren’t kidding, so are these instructions from Walter correct for this? Can it be simpler?

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6

If you want to be able to show each client their own files, and not
let them see any others, then what I posted will work, but it will
take a lot of juggling between applications to make it so:

  1. New client signs up.
  2. FTP into your client area, create a new folder.
  3. Go on your ISP’s control panel, and create a login and password
    for her, and use it to protect her folder.
  4. Extend the script that I wrote earlier to redirect into a
    different folder based on the login name (this is not hard at all,
    but requires that you do something like always name the folder the
    same as the login).
  5. Mail the login and password to your client, and hope that her
    computer doesn’t do anything wretched with FTP URLs.

On the other hand, there are hundreds of different systems available
for just this sort of thing, both free and paid. http://
hotscripts.com is a good place to look. It’s going to take some time
and programming to make it go, but from then on, provisioning a new
client space will be a lot simpler.

Ask yourself what your hourly rate is, and look at that list above.
It’s easy math to invest once, rather than pay as you go.

Walter

On Dec 11, 2007, at 8:52 AM, Chris Poisson wrote:

Walter, Dave,

Here’s the whole deal. I have an ftp for client viewing right now,
and I send them the username and password via email. This is just
for viewing work in progress, not for upload to me.

I use Transmit to upload WMVs and remove them after the client’s
get them as they take up a lot of space sometimes and it costs more
money if my total site goes over 500 megs.

So this week I was re-designing the whole site and trying to scale
it all back, and plan on updating it more often. In looking at some
of my competitor’s sites, they all have client login pages and
there’s two text boxes for people to type in the username and
password.

This is all I’m trying to do, very simple, I hope. The manual said
I would need to make some code to do this, they weren’t kidding, so
are these instructions from Walter correct for this? Can it be
simpler?

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7

Chris, there is a simpler way, mostly managed by Freeway using the
Javascript Password Action availabel fro here:

http://www.softpress.com/kb/article.php?id=199

It is easy to apply.

  1. Using Transmit create a separate folder on your host server for
    your work in progress

  2. In Freeway, create a new page for client access (or use an existing
    one that has room for a field and a button)

  3. From the Insert Menu go to Action item… and click on Password
    field

  4. Do the same except click on Password Button

5 Position these items as you want them and set the parameters in the
Action inspector. You will need to set the page to ‘External’ in the
‘Edit Hyperlink’ dialogue and type in the FULL URL to your WIP folder.

Note that this action is not the most secure way of handling access to
your server, but I have used it for a long time without a problem.

Colin

On 11 Dec 2007, at 13:52, Chris Poisson wrote:

I have an ftp for client viewing right now, and I send them the
username and password via email. This is just for viewing work in
progress, not for upload to me.

This is all I’m trying to do, very simple, I hope. The manual said I
would need to make some code to do this, they weren’t kidding, so
are these instructions from Walter correct for this? Can it be
simpler?

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8

On Dec 11, 2007, at 3:36 PM, Colin Alcock wrote:

Note that this action is not the most secure way of handling access to
your server, but I have used it for a long time without a problem.

This is kind of like backing up your hard drive, you never do it until
you discover you should have… then you feel very, very sick!

Mike

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9

That’s why I put in the note of caution, MIke. I only use this method
on one server, remote from anything else I do. And everything is
backed up elsewhere.

Also, many hosting providers now offer password protected folders,
which may be another route.

Colin.

On 11 Dec 2007, at 14:44, Mike B wrote:

On Dec 11, 2007, at 3:36 PM, Colin Alcock wrote:

Note that this action is not the most secure way of handling access
to
your server, but I have used it for a long time without a problem.

This is kind of like backing up your hard drive, you never do it until
you discover you should have… then you feel very, very sick!

Mike

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10

Yes we do on our hosting, its a simple job of creating a new folder on the server, password protect it, all this can be done using tools from the clients control panel. And just email the passwords and URL to the client.

On 11 Dec 2007, at 15:17, Colin Alcock wrote:

Also, many hosting providers now offer password protected folders,

which may be another route.

David Owen
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11

Thank you all very much, this is most helpful.

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