Forums/AppMakr Knowledge Base/Features
PlannedDoneNot planned
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_forms.asp
Login Feature
Leiser
suggested this on July 29, 2010 03:33 pm
***This feature will require coding knowledge and is considered an advanced feature. We strongly recommend that you tackle this feature only if you have such knowledge or hire someone to do so. While we support this feature, we do not provide one-on-one support of implementation of this feature as it will be unique to each app creator.***
For which platform is this feature available?
Android
What is this?
Login provides a way for you, the App Creator, to control who has access to your app. When this feature is enabled, your subscribers will be prompted to enter an username and password upon launching your app.
How does it work?
The username and password is sent from the subscriber's phone, using what is called an HTTP Post (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POST_(HTTP) ), to the URL you provided when setting up the login feature.
What you need to know:
This connection must occur over https to make sure the username and password are kept secure.
In Android, there is an option available to connect over an unsecured connection. You can do this by checking the box under "Advanced SSL Configuration".
Once your server has processed the username and password your server must respond by sending a JSON (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON ) string with either of the following:
{"authenticated": true}
or
{"authenticated": false}
If you are using PHP, the json_encode function is built in and can create the JSON for you: (http://nz.php.net/json_encode)
If "authenticated" is set to "true" the user will be granted access into your app and its feeds.
Example of general form submission development concepts in php:
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_forms.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_post.asp
Comments latest first
Yuri,
I agree. For a product that expects no coding - asking a newb to create a database-backend login/password mechanism is a bit much. However, the good news is for those of us on Mac and Windows you can use this product to create the script and DB connections fairly easily: Forms2Go. You can find it here: http://www.bebosoft.com/
By the way, I own the script and love it. I do NOT work for these guys. I simply point it out here because the link to the tutorial in this posting is overly complicated and won't help a newbie too much.
With all that said, Appmakr rocks!!!
-p
Hi !
I guess this feature is a bit too difficult for me ... but I need it :( . I am using Appmakr because it's a great piece of software that doesn't expect any knowledge of code . Is there anybody around here who can explain what to do ? I have server, I have a database , but I don't know how to configure this feature the way it has to be :( .
Yuri
Dear fellow appmakrs and support personell,
I would like to rephrase the question posed by Casey Cobb. Does the log in feature require that the user enters the un/pw details every time the app is launched, or could the app somehow memorize the log in details? Something equivalent to the “keep me logged in” feature many e-mail service providers offer. Or a save password feature. That would be great.
Kind regards,
Will it be available in the Android app?
Has anyone found a solution to this yet? Would love to add a login screen myself so we can gather user information for a forced signup. A full PHP example would be perfect.
what is a link i could use to make a log in for my app
If I add this feature to my app, does it require a log-in every time the app is opened? Or does it store the login it for some period of time? Or does it store the creds they've originally added and re-authenticate each time?
It would be a shame if they had to re-enter everything each time they launched the app.
Where has this feature gone? I can't seem to add it to my app?
Hi all!
If there is anyone out there that can help me! I need this Login Feature on an App I've been asked to create but I'm clueless about such things. I've tried to understand the basics but its all just greek to me.
I'm very willing to pay someone via Pay Pal to get this off the ground.
Please please help!
Hiya Jason,
I've scanned the pages you listed and to be honest its all a unpleasant fuzz to me.
I wonder if anyone has successfully completed a Login feature to their app and could they help me out? All I need to give app makr is a URL so the hard bit would be to set up the server (???).
Anyway ... I am as stuck as sticky the stick insect who got stuck on a sticky bun!
HELP!
Mark Jones
Hello Mark,
In order to do what you are inquiring about, you're going to need a web server in which to store your login encryption information and authenticate your users. This best tutorial I could find was here at IBM titled "PHP encryption for the common man" (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-encrypt/). So it looks like it's possible, you would just need to read up on it and play around with it. Let us know how this works out for you.
Thank You!
Happy AppMaking!!
-Jason from the AppMakr Support Team
Hello Mark,
We do not offer a service that would be able to set this up for you, but I have sent a message to our developers to see if they might have a little more information to help you out. I will post here when I hear back from them. Thank You!
Hiya!
I'm very new at this and even though i've been doing very well so far with 2 apps approved I've no idea what everyone is talking about with the login feature.
I have been asked to create an app that needs a login feature but am at a loss where to begin. I've scanned the POST and JSON articles on Wiki but its just jargon to me.
Is there a service I can use that will sort all of this out for me?
I'd really appreciate some help!
Mark Jones
@ Fred - Currently we do not support this. Right now the feature just sends the username/password and gets an "okay" or "not okay" back. The user who logs in is not stored in the app at any time.
This certainly could be a useful feature though, so I would encourage you to post your thoughts on our feature request page :)
Are there any variables that can be passed back to or read by the App? Please tell me we can do more than let someone in... I need to know who it is also.
Thanks
BTW - Love your software...
Okay, i got it working with the code before, it turned out that it was a certificate issue. Thanks!
I think it will also be helpful to post my code (at the moment), in case someone has found the proper way to doit or a workaround, just make note that this is just a test code, it doesn't connect to any database, it just respondes {"authenticated":true} every single time (for testing purposes).
<?php
if(isset($_POST['username'])){
$arr = array ("authenticated"=>true);
echo json_encode($arr);
}else{
?>
<form name="login" method="post" action="">
<input type="text" name="username" />
<input type="text" name="password" />
<input type="submit">
</form>
<?php
}
?>
In this particular case, the code expects to receive a $_POST variable called "username". but i've done prior tests with the response straight away with no "IF" statement and didn't worked either.
Any help would be very appreciated.
Cheers!
Can you put a PHP example of the login form/page, cause no matter what i do i don't get my app to sign in.
I have set up a https address (SSL) with a valid COMODO certificate, this test login form always returns
{"authenticated": true}
as a JSON string but no luck so far, i've tried also adding a form to the page named "login" but that doesn't work either. I will also be very helpful if you mention the POST variables name that the app sends to this form.
Thanks!.