best way to do this?

[docpat]

I am having people log into my web site because each person is going to have different settings. I have a mysql database of each user and pw. I'm wondering whats the best way to get their settings. I was thinking about maybe passing their username into the area after they login and then pulling their preferences and stuff from a seperate database. Is it best just to create one template page and then modify it where the differences would be?

Thanks,
Pat