Favorites Manager Login Control

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Current user ID: -1770040698

Please make a note of your User ID. You will need it if you clear the cookies on your computer, or if you want to access your bookmarks from a different computer. To try the demo, click the Enter Manager button. To learn more about the login process, or to access bookmarks from a previous session, read on.

to the user ID:   

Login Process

The login process in this demo is the default login and authorization mechanism in the product. The authorization mechanism is designed to be simple.

In terms of the architecture of the Web, there are two possible approaches to passing a User ID to Favorites Manager: you can either pass the User ID to Favorites Manager as part of the URL, or you can pass the User ID via a cookie. The major disadvantage of the first approach is that it makes the user ID visible in the browser history, the local cache, the firewall cache, the server logs, and so on. This is why we chose the second approach for Favorites Manager.

For each user, a user ID is maintained in a cookie (called bookmarks_user_id). The user IDs are large random numbers, making it almost impossible for someone to guess a valid user ID.

If you plan to purchase Favorites Manager and use a more sophisticated authorization mechanism, that should be easy because when you purchase Favorites Manager, you receive the source code. However, note that whatever mechanism you choose, you should probably make it as easy as possible for your users to access their favorites as quickly and easily as possible.

When this Web page loads, it identifies the current user. There are two possible scenarios:

• If this Web page does not find the bookmarks_user_id cookie, it creates a new user ID and displays the user ID at the top of this page. This happens when you first access Favorites Manager, or after cookies have been deleted.
• If this Web page finds the bookmarks_user_id cookie, the value of the cookie is shown at the top of this page and clicking the Enter Manager button displays your bookmarks. This happens when you have previously accessed Favorites Manager.

Accessing the Favorites Manager

There are a number of ways that your users can access their bookmarks.

The most popular way is to encourage your users to create a Desktop Shortcut for the Favorites Manager on their desktops. They can do this by right-clicking on the Favorites Manager Web page and choosing the Create Shortcut option. Double-clicking this shortcut will then start a browser with their Favorites Manager page.

Another possibility is to have your users to set their browser's Home Page to the main Favorites Manager Web page. If your users do this, they will see their bookmarks every time the start a browser or every time they click the browser Home button.

Multiple Users on the Same Computer

If there are multiple users on the same computer, they can use the controls at the top of this page to change between user IDs to see their bookmarks.

Troubleshooting

If you do not see your favorites in the Favorites Manager, there are three possible causes:

• The cookies in your browser were cleared. If the cookies have been cleared, Favorites Manager will not find your user ID.
• You are using a different browser on the same computer. If you are using a different browser, it will not read cookies from other browsers.
• You are using a different computer.

In all of these cases, provided you know your user ID, you can use the controls at the top of this page to change to that user ID and see your bookmarks.