• no separate (UNIX/NT) account is required for each user
• automatically update database (record remote host, IP and time-stamp) when user signs in
• configurable maximum-login-attempt-allowed; unsuccessful login will trigger an alert e-mail to be sent to the site administrator
• authentication by means of cookies (only two cookies need to be issued for the whole browser session): expiration time check, IP check and message authenticity check
• easily add new user by just one method call
• enable existing perl codes with user authentication

• database independent (not accomplished yet)
• simplified interface (wrapped around DBI) helps write cleaner codes

• cascading style sheet support
• use of ONE template to generate all HTML pages for your site and the template is easily customizable
• various HTML table constructs are included to help you build a professional looking community site with no HTML headache
• write your own themes or download them from the Internet (currently only one theme is included in LibWeb-0.02)
• web application written using one particular theme can be changed to using another theme by just changing one line of code
• a single web application can use more than one theme

LibWeb-0.02 automatically handles common application's errors and prints out help messages to guide user should error occur. An alert e-mail detailing a complete stack trace of the failure and server status will also be sent to the site administrator. So it allows you to continuously debug your application even after you have commented out

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

The following is a complete list of LibWeb-0.02's built-in error+help messages, you can customize these messages, customize the way LibWeb displays the messages and add your own messages!

• cookie_error
• database_error
• exceeded_max_login_attempt
• hit_back_and_edit
• login_expired
• login_failed
• logout_failed
• mysterious_error
• post_too_large
• registration_failed
• special_characters_not_allowed

LEAPs (LibwEb APplications) are a suite of community web site applications built by using LibWeb. I am planning to have message board, instant messaging, chat, file manager, user profile manager, used books sales/classified, match-making and possibly more as other developers write more web applications based on the interfaces and frameworks defined in LibWeb. To be more realistic, currently I have only written two LEAPs, a file manager and an online used-textbook classified. LEAPs are available at LEAPs home page.

One common drawback on open source web application is that after a web site developer downloaded the script, he/she has to do quite a bit of tweaking on the script in order for it to communicate with the site's own database and members authentication system. However, this is not a problem with LEAPs since the overheads of consistent member authentication scheme and database interaction is well defined and handled by LibWeb already.

This makes LEAPs plug-and-play web applications.

LibWeb-0.02 strong template and theming (HTML widgets) support also allows easy customization of the look and feel of a LEAP with minimum codes tweaking.

File manager: let your users have their own personal web sites under your domain!