How to make a login link Joomla 1.5

How to make a login link in Joomla 1.5 is asked quite regularly in forums.
Here's how to do it and add a bit of interactivity with the user.




Code updated 18.10.2010 to latest J1.5-21


The first way is to add a menu item to the login screen. 
In the Menu Manager select "New" and type "External Link".
The url to use is http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?option=com_user&view=login 



You can also add it directly in your template at a suitable position and style it appropriately - 

<!--login link-->
   <div id="loginlink">
 <a href="http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?option=com_user&view=login">Login </a> 
   </div>
<!--end login link-->

If we want to add a bit of user interactivity then we first need to get the users name with a JFactory call and store it in a variable which we place in the php section of the template - 

$username =& JFactory::getUser();

Then we can use this to greet the user if they are logged in and also provide a logout link. 

<!--login link-->
   <div id="loginlink">
 <?php
          
$username =& JFactory::getUser();
 if ($username->guest) {
 echo '<a href="http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?option=com_user&view=login" >Login</a>';
  } else {
  $name = $username->get('username'); 
  echo 'Hi ' . $name . ' -  <a href="http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?option=com_user&task=logout" >Logout</a>';
  }
 ?> 
   </div>
<!--end login link-->