htaccess login page

[GurusGuru]

Instead of the gray screen popping up asking for username and password while trying to access htaccess protected directory, is it possible to have a custom html page popping up. I do have a login script for a html page, but if one submits wrong username or password the gray screen again pops up. How to completely get rid of the gray pop up screen.

[GurusGuru]

No reply yet. Can anyone just tell whether it is possible or not.

[Feyd]

Not really any way reliably to do it. Though you could use a server-side script to process a login form of their user/pass that then adds the user/pass into a URL redirect to the proper location (http://user:pass@url). Though this is extremely insecure, leaves the user/pass mix in the history/cache for misuse and various other bad things...it basically negates authentication (though using a hidden function to simulate a login form does negate some of the bad vibes all around, but not enough to be called 'secure').

In theory you could also hadd the authentication into headers with a similar method, but I've never tried it so I'm not saying 100% one way or the other :)