This is a great example of how a new question leads to a little time-saving solution that several people have asked for. Somewhere in CPsquare, Bill Bruck asked:

Is there a way to write and bookmark a URL that will allow signgle sign-on to this space? For instance, it might look like:http://conversations.cpsquare.com/?userid=myname&password=mypassword

I realized that Etienne Wenger and Beverly Trayner had asked the same question before. Probably others had a similar use pattern but hadn’t actually articulated the question in quite that way.

A little digging around in documentation that end users do not normally bother with suggests that it’s pretty easy. The first step is to use your browser to book-mark an entry page on your Web Crossing site. As illustrated below, that could be the entry page or it could be the Web Crossing own internal bookmark page. Currently I use the bookmark page, because when a workshop or other event is running at CPsquare, I’m in and out of Web Crossing many times a day and in many different areas of the site. In that case you’d bookmark something like this:

http://your.webcrossing.com/WebX?bookmarks@@/

To automate the log-in, you edit the bookmark in your browser, inserting “23@@” after the first “?” and replacing the final “@@/” with “@!username=your%20name&password=yourpassword“, so that it looks this:

http://your.webcrossing.com/WebX?23@@bookmarks@/!username=your%20name&password=something

Save it, so that it shows in a convenient place. When you click on it, you’re automatically logged on to Web Crossing. Notice that blanks in your name are represented as “%20“. Also, consider that this will let anyone with access to your browser log on as you to Web Crossing.

If you don’t want to enter Web Crossing with by looking at the Web Crossing bookmarks page, use soemthing like this:

http://your.webcrossing.com/WebX?8@@/!username=your%20name&password=something