Static Main Page (login page) on Drupal Install

Question

Hi All,

I am starting to create a site that uses Drupal. One of my requirements is that nobody will see any "real" content until they log in. The home page will basically be a static page with a logo, some basic "this is what the site does" copy, and then a login form. If you don't login, you can then only see some other static pages (faq, legal, privacy, etc...) but you can't use the actual site. Think Facebook's login page, basically just fluff with a login form.

From searching around, I have found 3 different methods for this:

1. Create a page that is basically separate from the Drupal installation, but then when the form submits, check it against the Drupal DB and then proceed if logged in successfully. This would be done with Apache, maybe an .htaccess file directive to change the first served page.

2. Use the Front Page extension. I haven't looked at this too extensively, has anyone used it? Pros/Cons?

3. Somehow finagle the default Druapl "Home Page" functionality to allow this to happen. I would rather not have to do this, unless someone knows that there is an easy way to do this.

Answer 1

One of my requirements is that nobody will see any "real" content until they log in.

There is a permission that users need have in order to access content on Drupal (access content); if anonymous users don't have that permission, then they would not be able to see any content.

Using the module you reported, you can create a different home page for anonymous users.

Solution #1 is not the ideal one as it requires more work for something that can be obtained from inside Drupal. Take in mind that the correct way to access Drupal DB is to use the DB API Drupal comes with.