denied content force login and redirect to the original page

[dschafer]

I feel like I'm missing something.

I've read about restricting content via the ACL but I haven't seen word one about the recommended approach for reacting to denied content.

I have content that is denied to the public and sure enough, a non-logged in user is denied access. Unfortunately the user will just see a blank page.

What I'd like to have happen is the user presented with a login, then after the login the return to the originally requested page. I know I must be missing something. If someone could point me to the best approach to resolve this, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thx.

[dschafer]

I've implemented a redirect to the login page in the com_content articles view. I used the return= technique to let the login page know where to go after logging in.

I understand why and how these mechanisms work. Given the elaborate apparatus Joomla has for ACL/Usergroups it still seems like hacking the core code wouldn't be the best choice. Does anyone have a more graceful approach?

[rcarey]

If you implemented your redirection in the view's template file, then that is not hacking the core.

Keep in mind the user's experience. If the user is taken immediately to a login page, that user might be confused as to why they see a login and not the content. If the user sees the blank content area except for a message that he/she needs to login to view this content, and then have a link to the login page, that might be a better user experience.

You might have accounted for this. Keep in mind that if it is possible that a user can be logged in yet still not have credential to access to the content, the code ought to distinguish between this scenario and the non-logged-in scenario - and produce the appropriate user experience for each scenario.