Two issues in project preparation

[votan]

I wanna use RB for a comunity project.... but there are two issues facing up, that could lead to not being able to do it in RB!?
1) I wanna allow users to have their own profile pages like www.somewebsite.com/user1 , /user2, /user3 etc.... but without actually having a folder / pagedocument for every single user. So the users just exist in a DB that the RB program then uses to generate the actual page for a given user. But the issue now is, that entering www.somewebsite.com/user1 would result in an 404 page not found error as that document does not exist. So I need to find a way to avoid this error and instead pass the name behind the url to RB that then looks that name up in the DB and generates the matching page.

2)I'm sure that can be done, I'm just not really sure how users and sessions are handled by RB.... and I didn't find more info on that here......
How to have different users with different access-levels.... and how to prevent user1 from also being able to edit things from user2.... ?

I don't need full code on these issues, just the theoretical way on how to do it with RB would be ok already.... even though some real working code that does a bit of that would be cool.
Thanx in advance....

[Carl Gundel - admin]

Jul 7, 2008 7:40:01 GMT -5 votan said:

I wanna use RB for a comunity project.... but there are two issues facing up, that could lead to not being able to do it in RB!?
1) I wanna allow users to have their own profile pages like www.somewebsite.com/user1 , /user2, /user3 etc.... but without actually having a folder / pagedocument for every single user. So the users just exist in a DB that the RB program then uses to generate the actual page for a given user. But the issue now is, that entering www.somewebsite.com/user1 would result in an 404 page not found error as that document does not exist. So I need to find a way to avoid this error and instead pass the name behind the url to RB that then looks that name up in the DB and generates the matching page.

Of course you can do that by using a named parameter like:

www.somesite.com/?user=JoeSmith

Then use the UrlKeys$ variable to get the named parameters from the URL.

2)I'm sure that can be done, I'm just not really sure how users and sessions are handled by RB.... and I didn't find more info on that here......
How to have different users with different access-levels.... and how to prevent user1 from also being able to edit things from user2.... ?

You would store your user's information in a database table or a file.

You would have a Register link like other web sites. You would then take their information on a page. You can then save that information and have a routine that you can use to approve these each account if you like, and give users the permission level you prefer.

I don't need full code on these issues, just the theoretical way on how to do it with RB would be ok already.... even though some real working code that does a bit of that would be cool.
Thanx in advance....

Let me know if you have any more questions.

-Carl

[votan]

Of course you can do that by using a named parameter like:

www.somesite.com/?user=JoeSmith

Then use the UrlKeys$ variable to get the named parameters from the URL.

Yes, was already thinking about this way, but that's not really what I need.
As this is for a community project, users should be able to access their profile directly like this "somewebsite.com/supermario". So without the need of adding parameters first to the url.... nobody would propably do it... and it would make sharing your profile a hassle, too.

As I finally bought a copy of RB yesterday, I played a bit more with it and checked out the server. What would do the trick would be a little extra addon to the server..... somethung that normally only can be achieved by using the arkward mod_rewrite on Apache servers. And as this feature is missing in the RB server anyway, it would be more than cool if you could still add it to your current 1.01 beta.
I mean.... "the custom errorpage handling".... is what the server is missing and would solve this issue and would deliver a very powerfull extra-service that can be used for many things.

So basically you just add a special function to the serversettings... "error page". There you can select the script that is being called when a "404 page not found" error ocours. This way, I can decide what will happen when a non exisiting site is being called...
And behind that error page option you could add a checkbox "pass url". If this option is activated, the server passes a variable with whatever was entered behind the domain... like in this case "supermario". So the called error page could generate a custom errorpage on the fly, without ever generating any 404 response, what would be like a really powerfull feature as this can be used for doing MANY cool things!

This would be the only little bit missing in the big puzzle....
Would be more than great if you would concider implementing this feature.

[carlgundel]

Jul 8, 2008 4:48:01 GMT -5 votan said:

Of course you can do that by using a named parameter like:

www.somesite.com/?user=JoeSmith

Then use the UrlKeys$ variable to get the named parameters from the URL.

Yes, was already thinking about this way, but that's not really what I need.
As this is for a community project, users should be able to access their profile directly like this "somewebsite.com/supermario". So without the need of adding parameters first to the url.... nobody would propably do it... and it would make sharing your profile a hassle, too.

As I finally bought a copy of RB yesterday, I played a bit more with it and checked out the server. What would do the trick would be a little extra addon to the server..... somethung that normally only can be achieved by using the arkward mod_rewrite on Apache servers. And as this feature is missing in the RB server anyway, it would be more than cool if you could still add it to your current 1.01 beta.
I mean.... "the custom errorpage handling".... is what the server is missing and would solve this issue and would deliver a very powerfull extra-service that can be used for many things.

So basically you just add a special function to the serversettings... "error page". There you can select the script that is being called when a "404 page not found" error ocours. This way, I can decide what will happen when a non exisiting site is being called...
And behind that error page option you could add a checkbox "pass url". If this option is activated, the server passes a variable with whatever was entered behind the domain... like in this case "supermario". So the called error page could generate a custom errorpage on the fly, without ever generating any 404 response, what would be like a really powerfull feature as this can be used for doing MANY cool things!

This would be the only little bit missing in the big puzzle....
Would be more than great if you would concider implementing this feature.

I will certainly give some thought to this, but I cannot promise that such a feature will make it into the next release.

The ability to write a special handler for 404 errors is very interesting as you say. If such a program had access to the URL in question it could do different things. Perhaps it could even generate a redirect page. User enters www.mysite.com/user1 and it redirects to www.mysite.com/seaside/go/runbasicpersonal?user=user1

However I didn't write the webserver that is built into Run BASIC. I have the sources but they are pretty obscure to me. It would be a challenging job.

-Carl

[kokenge]

What's wrong with a standard sign in?
They type:
somewebsite.com
Your program comes back with a user, and they type in their name.
User:supermario

Granted this takes one extra keyclick, but I'd rather put in two <CR> than one "/" and their name.

If they make a mistake with the /supermario they have to type it again. The sign in will give them an error and they type only their user name only again.

Personally - I'd stick with a user/pass combo for the extra security.

Just my opinion..
HTH
Have a great day.

[votan]

I will certainly give some thought to this, but I cannot promise that such a feature will make it into the next release.

The ability to write a special handler for 404 errors is very interesting as you say. If such a program had access to the URL in question it could do different things. Perhaps it could even generate a redirect page. User enters www.mysite.com/user1 and it redirects to www.mysite.com/seaside/go/runbasicpersonal?user=user1

However I didn't write the webserver that is built into Run BASIC. I have the sources but they are pretty obscure to me. It would be a challenging job.

Would be more than cool if you cold get it to work somehow.... maybe the seaside guys who wrote the server can help a bit with that via their mailinglist? I'm sure the server has some sort of support for that..... I will try to find out things, too....

kokenge
Well, that wouldn't really work for me....