Account Activation

[feck]

I'm trying to find some simple tutorials on account activation, by sending a user a confirmation email that they have to interact with to finally confirm account details. Any sites, or tutorials will be greatly appreciated. I've set up a page that takes info from the user and inserts it into a database, this page then sends an email to the user. This is where i'm at at present. So basically i just need the confirmation bit with an added bonus of some simple security.

[Ingolme]

When I did a script of that sort I put a randomly generated hexadecimal number in one of their empty profile fields of the database table (I used their website one) and I send them an email with a link containing that number in a query string. The link goes to a validation page that compares a variable given in a query string to the data in the database and activates the account if they're the same.

[feck]

Got everything working, randomly generated key, confirmation email, cofirmation php page that checks the url for the key, everything i need basically (i think).Except when i send the email, how do i send a clickable link?

[Ingolme]

Just write it normally, with http:// at the beggining, and most mail clients should interpret it as a link automatically. Put a notice for them to copy and paste it if it's not a link.

[feck]

hotmail seems to have a problem with me just writing it this way, although emails from others show the links, why is this?just to say that writing the link out just as is shows the link as a link on other email systems, but not on hotmail.

[Ingolme]

Hotmail has a lot of spam protection these days and doesn't show links or special content from any mail until you tell it that it's from a trustable source.