ZF Project outline should look something like this:
Code:
+application
bootstrap.php
+controllers
+models
+views
+scripts
...
+public // server www root should be set here
index.php // this file should require_once bootstrap.php file from application directory
.htaccess // RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule !\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$ index.php
+styles
+images
+someotherdate
+protectedfolder
.htaccess // RewriteEngine off and some other authentication logic
so if you go to
http://www.mysite.com/protectedfolder you will get a nice dialog window which asks for user and password (feature of web server sending 401 http status code)
other thing is when you want to build application with protected area only for admin/users and authenticate them with login site - then you will propably use Zend_Authenticate which will check wheter user exists in database and supplied password is correct
Please read more in manual on ZF official site
