Learning ASP.NET 2.0 with AJAX

Chapter 9. Security and Personalization

Nearly everything you’ve learned about so far in this book has been aimed at increasing the interactivity of your web sites—giving the user control over his or her experience with your site. But why should that interactivity just be limited to data? With ASP.NET 2.0, you can allow readers to customize the appearance of your site based on their preferences. You can allow users to identify themselves to your site, so that you can save their preferences and restore them whenever they visit. Of course, having users log in is also useful for security reasons. You can restrict parts of your site to access just by certain users or groups.

In this chapter, you’ll build a functional site with multiple pages, some public and some not. You’ll use the ASP.NET login controls, and see just how easy they are to use and customize to your needs. You’ll then adapt the site to restrict pages to specific roles, and see how to manage your users. You’ll enhance your site by letting users enter personal information that you’ll store and produce on demand, and you’ll learn how to provide content for users who’d rather remain anonymous. Finally, you’ll modify the appearance of the controls on your site with themes, and you’ll see how you can let users set their own themes, and retain those settings with their other personal information.

Forms-Based Security

Many Internet sites require that users “log in.” This allows the site both to restrict access to “members” and ...