Dummy form to submit like the real login form

Question

i have a web application whose login form is in ~/Account/Login.aspx, where I implemented the login logic and it works as expected.

Now, our graphic designer reshaped the home page putting in a corner a small html login form. I liked the idea of having another login form in the home page, but I don't know how to make this form do submit like the actual login page. I had a look inside the generated html of the real login page but it seems that it doesn't event use a <form>, so I can't just adjust the input boxes' names and form action to match the real login's ones.

Is there a way to enable this login form without rewriting all the code behind?

Answer 1

You could use AJAX to call the membership services in order to authenticate the user:

You would need to enable the AuthenticationServices in the web.config file

<configuration>
  <system.web.extensions>
    <scripting>
      <scriptResourceHandler enableCaching="false" enableCompression="false" />
      <webServices>
        <authenticationService enabled="true" requireSSL="false" />
      </webServices>
    </scripting>
  </system.web.extensions>
</configuration>

And then in a page:

<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
    <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" ID="sm">
    </asp:ScriptManager>
    <asp:LoginView runat="server">
        <AnonymousTemplate>
            <input type="tel" name="user" id="user" />
            <br />
            <input type="password" name="pass" id="pass" />
            <br />
            <input type="button" value="Login" name="login" id="login" onclick="attemptLogin(this);" />
        </AnonymousTemplate>
        <LoggedInTemplate>
            <input type="button" name="logout" id="logout" value="Logout" onclick="attemptLogout(this);" />
        </LoggedInTemplate>
    </asp:LoginView>
    <asp:LoginName FormatString="Welcome {0}!" runat="server" />
    <%--<asp:LoginStatus runat="server" />--%>
</div>
    <script>
        function attemptLogin(e) {
            Sys.Services.AuthenticationService.login(
                $get("user").value,
                $get("pass").value,
                false,
                null,
                null,
                function success(validCredentials, userContext, methodName) {
                    if (validCredentials == true) {
                        alert("user logged in");
                        window.location = window.location;
                    }
                    else {
                        alert("user name or password incorrect");
                    }
                }, function fail(error, userContext, methodName) {
                    alert(error.get_message());
                }, null);
        }

        function attemptLogout(e) {
            Sys.Services.AuthenticationService.logout(
                window.location,
                null,
                null,
                null
            );
        }
    </script>
</form>

Alternatively, you could expose a web service with the login logic and call that web service instead of the AuthenticationService using AJAX

Another way would be to create a UserControl with the login controls and put that control on the home page handling the login events in the UserControl's code behind