Create Websites with CHEETAH
Special websites and techniques (4)
Create membership areas
Often you want to provide a selected group of people (these can be your own customers or interested parties, or people who have explicitly ordered a newsletter or downloaded an eBook, but also club members, for example, if the website is a club website) with exclusive information or information material that is only accessible to this group of people. For this purpose, so-called "member areas" are used, which a visitor can only "enter" after authentication. How to create such member areas - and how easy it is in "Cheetah" - will be explained in this chapter.
In this description we assume that a website already exists (here "builderall-power.de"). In its side view we now create a new page, which should be named "Home Member Area". By the way, this is exactly the page the visitor will get to when he logs in. You can design this page like any other web page in "Cheetah". There are no restrictions. We are content here - for the sake of recognition - with an own band and a H0 header. But you can also choose a suitable banner from the banner palette. One finds appropriate templates in the categories "Membership Area". However you decide, the website is quickly clicked together:
We also add a "LogOut" button, which the visitor can use later to leave the member area.
Tip: If the members' area consists of a larger number of pages, it is better to define a separate header area for them and then assign them to the corresponding pages. In this case, the Log Out button should be placed on the header (as described below).
After saving, we switch to the header in the "Global elements" and edit the header used on the website. "Edit" here only means that we insert a new "LogIn" button and a new "Register" button here:
Note: You don't necessarily have to place such a button in the header, of course. You can, of course, place it anywhere on a web page (and, of course, in the footer), that is, wherever it makes sense in the context of the website.
Next, you need to create and configure the "Member Area" itself. You can find the button for this in the side view of your website:
Clicking on it opens the following settings window, which we will fill in right now:
First, we assign a unique name and formulate a short description for the page. We also take the opportunity to select a special "highlight color" for exactly this member area (click in the circle at the top right and select the desired color - here red - from the color dialog). This color will later be used to mark the pages of the member area in the page view of the website. It can also be used to distinguish multiple member areas in the page view (yes, you can create as many member areas as you like for a website in "Cheetah" - e.g. a "Basic" area, a "Premium" area and maybe even a "VIP area"!).
The next point answers the question of how access should be granted. There are four options here:
1. grant access automatically for everyone who registers.
2. grant access manually or by payment (supercheckout).
3. grant access automatically for active Builderall partners
4. grant access automatically for active Builderall Premium partners.
We choose the first item here. In this case, the visitor will have to identify himself with his e-mail address and a password given by himself during registration, if he wants to log in to the member area. The second case is intended for when paid services are to be used via the member area or when access to paid digital products is to be obtained via this area. However, there is also the possibility that the website operator explicitly decides whether or not to activate the person who has registered for the area. Points 3 and 4 are reserved for Builderall affiliates and are therefore of no further interest here.
Now we come to the type of authentication. This can be done either via a classic login (the visitor enters the data provided during registration, i.e. e-mail address and password) or via a special login token that is generated by the website and then made available to the visitor for logging into the member area. In "Cheetah", both login methods can even be combined.
Finally, all that remains to be done is to specify which page should be displayed after the successful login. In this example, this is obviously the "Member Area Home Page" that we created exactly for this purpose.