[Phplib-users] Mixing Authenticated & unauthenticated Pages

[T. R. <Te...@Te...>]

Thanks all for your help with my revalidation problems!  I'm very glad to be
beyond that, now I'm moving ahead and making new mistakes.  (the only way
real progress is ever made!)
I'm trying to mix authenticated & "anonymous/nobody" scripts.

I include() a menu in the left hand gutter of every page.  If you're logged
on with user permissions, you get one menu, admin - you get another.  If you
haven't logged on at all, you only see a log in form.  (pretty basic stuff)
Items across the top navigation bar of the page don't require
authentication.  To handle those pages, I created a second subclass of Auth
called defaultAuth that sets $nobody to true.

If I open a non-privileged page, like say contacts.php - the left-hand menu
disappears. OK - that makes sense, the defaultAuth is active and not my
customAuth class.  In a moment of misguided clarity, I added a page_open()
in the left navigation that uses my customAuth class.  Great!  Now I can see
the left hand menu when I'm on a page that uses defaultAuth.

Wait just a second boy-genius! - Now users who haven't logged on yet are
forced to log on when that left nav is executed during the include().
Ahhh, the law of unintended consequences bites me in the rump again!

Anyone got any tips they'd like to share for mixing authentication modes?

Thanks in advance,

Terry