Rendering a different view after the user is logged In - html

Question

I am creating a web application in MVC 4. How do we create a different view and render it based on if user is logged in or not? I am not sure if I am asking the right question since I am new to programming. I have looked this online but haven't found any resource that guides a beginner to do it. I'm pretty sure this is done in the controller but my question is how to tell the controller to render a different view after checking that the user is logged in. However, if there is some other obvious and efficient way of doing this then I would greatly appreciate if someone took the time to answer this question.

Answer 1

there's an override when you do return View()
return View("myView", myModel");
for example
public ActionResult Index()
{
if(User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
return View("GoodUser");
return View("BadUser");
}
But if you're new, I would suggest 2 things:
see the hole online curse that is available for free in http://www.asp.net/mvc (right side where it says "Essential Videos")
create an MVC3 project and see how they do it as it's comes already with Membership

Answer 2

You can use Forms Authentication.
ViewModel:
public class LogIN
{
[Required]
[DisplayName("User name")]
public string UserName { get; set; }
[Required]
[DataType(DataType.Password)]
[DisplayName("Password")]
public string Password { get; set; }
}
Repository:
public class LogInRepository
{
public bool CheckUser(string UserName, string Password)
{
//Query the database here and return true or false depending on the username and the password
}
}
Controller:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult LogOn(LogIN model, string returnUrl)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
LogInRepository rep = new LogInRepository();
string UserRole = string.Empty;
if (rep.CheckUser(model.UserName, model.Password))
{
FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(model.UserName);
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(returnUrl))
return Redirect(returnUrl);
else
return Redirect(FormsAuthentication.DefaultUrl);
}
else
{
ModelState.AddModelError("", "The user name or password provided is incorrect.");
}
}
// If we got this far, something failed, redisplay form
return View(model);
}
View:
#using (Html.BeginForm()) {
#Html.ValidationSummary(true)
<fieldset>
<legend>Account LogIn</legend>
<div class="editor-label">
#Html.LabelFor(model => model.UserName)
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
#Html.EditorFor(model => model.UserName)
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.UserName)
</div>
<div class="editor-label">
#Html.LabelFor(model => model.Password)
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
#Html.EditorFor(model => model.Password)
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Password)
</div>
<p>
<input type="submit" value="Create" />
</p>
</fieldset>
Web.config settings:
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="~/Test/LogOn" timeout="2880" defaultUrl="~/Test/Index" />
</authentication>
<authorization>
<deny users="?" />
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
If the User is not logged on user will be redirected to LogOn view and if logged in will redirect to Index view.