What would be the best way to have a login area on a site?

I would create the accounts and give out the usernames and passwords so it wouldnt have to have a registration function.

Ideally I would like a page with a form to enter username and password then take the user to a few pages that are in the secure area.

Does anyone know how I would go about it? Maybe a tutorial or something?

What htaccess be suitable for this or would I need a database?

Thank you.

If you use something like ADDT (Adobe Dreamweaver Developer Toolbox) you would be able to put something like that together with virtually no knowledge in about 15 minutes, I have done it on my own site and it is really easy and fast to impliment.

When I click on the 'Login Form Wizard' I get a message that says 'This product was designed to work with any of the following server modules: PHP MySQL, ASP VBScript, ColdFusion'

I press ok and nothing happens.

Any ideas?

This means that you have an html page open in DW instead of a php / asp / cf page, so basicly make a new page in php, save it then open the wizard.

Thank you.

That depends on what you want to do. If you want to use space to inform users to new features etc it may be a good option to have a separate page. If not you could just create a login area on the header and preferably on the right side. Make sure you highlight it so it gets the attention of the user and have a 'go' or 'sign in' button which can be clearly distinguished from a link.

I think I would like a page with some basic info on and a login form.

Then once users are logged in they are taken to ".com/login/index.htm" and then can access the pages in that dir.

I guess I need an MySQL database too.