Help with Login form on index page

[Cerebral_Cow]

I have made a login form in the sidepanel on the index.php page of my website. After the user logs in, I want to make it so the login form disappears and in its place is a message saying "Welcome $username".

I am stumped on how to make the same index page show a login form (when the user is not logged in) and show no login form (when the user is logged in).

Any advice on how one might go about doing this would be great, thanks.

[laserlight]

Well, that should be simple enough, using a conditional check such as an if-else statement.

[Cerebral_Cow]

I added a functions page which had one function for displaying a members login box and one function for displaying a logged in box.

Then I used if/else as you suggested. If cookie was not authorized, then the login box appeared. If cookie authorized, then the welcome message appeared.

Example:

<?
if ($auth == "ok") //If cookie is accepted.
{
logged_in(); //Display logged_in() function listed in functions.php
exit();
} else { //If cookie is not accepted.
login_form(); //Display login_form() function listed in functions.php
exit();
}
?>

Thanks laserlight. I just needed to know how to approach the problem. I appreciate the lead.