Pass login credentials in URL or Static Values in login_page macro possible?

[ciwcarchive]

I have a private forum (actually mail list archive)  that I wish to embed in a website page that is already member only.   I would like to set up the embedded forum to be automatically logged in so members don't have to enter a second set of credentials to read the archives.  Security is not that big of an issue, as the archive does not really contain anything sensitive, it is just a club discussion list.

Is it possible to pass a static username/email address and password through the script of the embed url?   Or can somehow I add a static value to the email and password field values of the "login_page" macro?

Or is there a better way?  

Thanks

[GregChapman]

These days, don't most people set their browsers to remember usernames and passwords if that's what they want to happen?

Doesn't it just annoy people when they find that a web site author is doing things on their behalf that, because of their particular circumstances, may be inappropriate?

[ciwcarchive]

I guess I don't see how your response fits with my question.    I will be doing nothing on their behalf.  They won't even have user names and passwords to the email archive.   They are already members of the website, and members of the group email that is being archived.    I just want members to be able to easily browse the archive without having to create a second account.

I could just make the archive public, but then it exposes the group members names and such to people who don't really need to be privy to them.  

[GregChapman]

ciwcarchive wrote

I guess I don't see how your response fits with my question.    I will be doing nothing on their behalf.

But, as I understood it, the effect your question was to know how you could log your members into the archive without them asking to log in. I should explain...

They won't even have user names and passwords to the email archive. They are already members of the website, and members of the group email that is being archived.    I just want members to be able to easily browse the archive without having to create a second account.

Aside from "Administrators", Nabble archive has a number of classes of user. These include: "Anyone" and "Registered".

Each of these can be given, or have withdrawn, "View" "Create_topic" and "Reply" permissions, amongst others. By default even "Anyone" users (i.e. the general public) have all of these rights. To prevent anyone seeing your forum you need to remove the "View" permissions from the "Anyone" group. That means any of your members must register an email address on your Nabble archive and must login using that registered address, in order to lift themselves out of the "Anyone" group and into a group that you give "View" rights.

Furthermore, unless you deliberately prevent it,  it is not just a web site which people can use browse to read old mail list postings, the default is for Nabble to act as a direct gateway to the mail list, so people who are subscribers to the list can post to it via the web site. That also means they must be logged in individually, so that they can post to the list, via the archive, under their own mail address recognised by the mail list.

I could just make the archive public, but then it exposes the group members names and such to people who don't really need to be privy to them.

That is the alternative, but with the disadvantage you clearly don't want. Therefore, there is little option but to log the members into the archive.

I guess you could write a script that would run on your main site and log everybody in as a generic "Registered" user, with "View" permission, but not "Create-topic" or "Reply" rights, as the Nabble archive page is launched, but that would destroy much of the functionality of the service and hence the reason why I assumed you'd be logging your members in individually.

[ciwcarchive]

GregChapman wrote

I guess you could write a script that would run on your main site and log everybody in as a generic "Registered" user, with "View" permission, but not "Create-topic" or "Reply" rights, as the Nabble archive page is launched, but that would destroy much of the functionality of the service and hence the reason why I assumed you'd be logging your members in individually.

That is exactly what I would like to do.  Since it is nothing more than an archive of the emails that have been sent back and forth by the members themselves there is no need of the create topic or reply functionality.   Only view rights.

I was hoping I could log the embeded archive in as a generic user by passing the login credentials through either the url, or by modifying the "login_page" macro.   I tried both, but it did not seem to work.  

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Isn't your HTML page (where the forum is embedded) already private? If yes, why leaving the app public would be an issue? How would unwanted users view the app? You mean they could visit the forum on the Nabble website (not embedded)? You could just set the redirect option and they would be forced to visit it embedded. Please explain why this would be an issue so that we can help you.

[ciwcarchive]

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

You could just set the redirect option and they would be forced to visit it embedded. Please explain why this would be an issue so that we can help you.

Hugo, thanks!  Actually your solution will work perfectly!  I had not noticed the  redirect option.  I am new to nabble and probably should have read the documentation, but I have been looking a dozens of mail list archiving solutions and could not read up on all the features and functions.

[GregChapman]

Silly me! Why didn't I make that point!

[ciwcarchive]

It is usually the simple solutions we over look.  I was sure trying to make it more complicated.  

I can't believe how awesome Nabble's features are.   Blows anything that yahoo or google has produced for their groups/forums out of the water.

We were using Groupspaces for our ladies club email discussion list until last month when they decided to severely limit their free accounts by reducing the user limit from 250 to 50.  We had 55 members, and did not want to have to pay $14 a month for just 5 extra members.   Anyway we would have just moved all of our members over to using a Nabble mailing list, but I could not find a way to add the members directly without them having to go through the subscribing process.   Which would not normally be that big of deal, but  last year when we switch from yahoo groups half the ladies could not figure out how to start using Groupspaces.  

[Hugo <Nabble>]

ciwcarchive wrote

We were using Groupspaces for our ladies club email discussion list until last month when they decided to severely limit their free accounts by reducing the user limit from 250 to 50.  We had 55 members, and did not want to have to pay $14 a month for just 5 extra members.   Anyway we would have just moved all of our members over to using a Nabble mailing list, but I could not find a way to add the members directly without them having to go through the subscribing process.   Which would not normally be that big of deal, but  last year when we switch from yahoo groups half the ladies could not figure out how to start using Groupspaces.

In the "Manage subscribers" screen (Options > Users > Manage subscribers) you can invite subscribers to the forum. They would receive an email with a confirmation link, which is a quick, but important, step to finish the subscription process.