coding novice needs help

[starboard]

I don't have a clue where to begin looking.

I want to do two things on my web-site.
One, set up a password protect sub-folder/sub-section on a website.
Two, I want to set up a page where there are links to the content of a particular folder. The list of links automatically updates when I add files to that folder. I must also be able to control the look and styling of these links, probably through CSS.

I hope those descriptions are clear enough.
All I know is these things are beyond basic HTML and Java scripting. I haven't got a clue other wise. I don't need a full decription of how to implement them, just a hint of where to start looking. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[sonofslim]

re. #1: probably the easiest way to do this is to add an .htaccess file. that's just a file that lives on your server and asks for a password every time the directory is opened -- it's an Apache setting. you'll need to talk to your host about this. they might set it up for you, if they haven't provided you with an account control panel with which you could do it yourself.

#2: i'd use PHP to do this, but that's because i'm a PHP programmer. you might want to look into PHP and see if it's something you're interested in learning a little (or a lot) of, and also that it's something your host supports. there was a recent mention in a thread here (look about 8 or 10 posts down) about using PHP to automatically pull content from a directory.

as for the css -- unless you've got crazy grand designs, styling links is going to be a pretty simple matter. any one of the many, many css tutorials online can get you started.