Thomas Penwell

http://www.ThePenwells.com/ is now a much live website. Currently I have a family directory (which is only accessable to my family members who are registered on the site. I have also been able to link the directory login to an image gallery system called 4images.

I then spent countless hours trying to figure out how the 4images php scripts creates sessions and then try to duplicate that functionality with the help of a bridge script (a script to link the directory users with the gallery users.) I tried setting the cookies used by the gallery system and creating sessions in the sessions table of the gallery database. Had no luck.

So I had to cheat on this one to bridge the directory to the photo gallery. What I had to do is create a bridge script that duplicates the login form for the gallery system and automatically fill out and submit this login form to log the user in to the gallery system. The directory database has a table to hold the information (username and password) used by the bridge to make it look seemless to the end user. If a bridge has not yet been created, the user is prompted to "create the bridge". The bridge only needs to be created once. When the bridge is created, the bridge script goes to work and 1) creates a user in photo gallery system with a randomized password (this password is stored in the bridge table of the directory database otherwise the bridge script is unable to log the user into the photo gallery system.) 2) Adds appropriate photo albums (or categories) for the user. 3) Sets the user's permissions on those albums so they are able to upload to them. All links to the photo gallery system are then pointed to the bridge script. The bridge then "redirects" users to the actual gallery system and logs them into it.