Forwarding a user to a members area

This tutorial will show you how to put a php login script on your site that will forward members logging in to a central members area. I'll be using User Session Pro, but the principle can be applied to any login script.

Using the action attribute

The simplest way to send a visitor to any page is to make use of your you login forms action attribute. Just point it to your members areas. So the start of your login form will look something like this:

If you do that when someone submits the login form they will be directed to whatever address you have put in the action attribute. The down side is that if the login is unsuccessful (with a wrong password or something) the user will still end up at the address of your members area. This might not be a bad thing as presumably you have a login script on your members area too.

If the above method is not for you read on and I'll tell you how to use the php "header" function to redirect a visitor.

Using the PHP header function

This way is slightly more complicated, but does have the advantage that if login is not successfull users will remain on the page they started on.

Basically, on each page you check to see if a user is logged in, and then if they are, check to see if they have submitted the login form. If they've submitted the login form you know they are loggin in now and you have to forward them to the relevant page.

You just have to make sure that the following code is included before any output is made.

So there's two methods you can use to get logging in users to automatically arrive at your members area.