Perform Some Action after Customer successful Login : Magento

Question

I am creating a module in which I want to check some condition after customer successfully login, if condition is true then customer login otherwise not.

I know two ways of doing this :

1. Overriding AccountController
2. With Magento event.

My query are:

1. which is the best way?
2. Is there any event with which I can full fill my requirement?

Or if there is other best way of doing this, please recommend.

Answer 1

You need to use customer_login On the Mage_Customer_Model_Session model's method setCustomerAsLoggedIn() the event customer_login is dispatched.

config.xml

<customer_login>
    <observers>
        <yourobservername>
            <type>model</type>
            <class>yourmodule/path_to_class</class>
            <method>customerLogin</method>
        </yourobservername>
    </observers>
</customer_login>

and your Observer

class YourCompany_YourModule_Model_Observer
{
    public function customerLogin($observer)
    {
        $customer = $observer->getCustomer();
    }
}

Whenever a user is sucessfully logged in, the event customer_login will be fired and you have observed the method customerLogin() on that event, so your method from the observer will execute whenever a customer is successfully logged in. Here you can check your conditions as per requirements.

Answer 2

I think the best way to use magento event if possible. But in your case you have to check the condition before customer logins am i right? If so i don't think there is any events for that.So the best way is to override the controller.