In this chapter we implemented user registration. This allowed us to gather data about our users so that they could become a member of our community. In addition to gathering the data, we briefly covered the ways to store some of the more important information. We also created a CAPTCHA tool to reduce the amount of spam our community would have to deal with. We also provided some tools for the newly registered users so that they could remind themselves of their passwords and edit their account data. Once the registration tools were put in place, we then discussed and implemented an easy way to manage sitewide navigation and security.

With the account creation and management tools in place, we can now move on to other chapters. It was important to get this chapter under our belts as all the following chapters will use many of the features we created here.