Cookie Help!

[graeme]

Hi there,

I am not sure if this is the right place to be asking on this forum (if not please tell me where!). I am looking for advice on cookies. I have a very specific type of cookie I need to create for one of the features on my website.

Basically, I am creating a "web novel". Part of the format is a "bookmark" feature. This would be a cookie which, once clicked, takes the reader out of the web-novel mode and back to the main book selection page with all the different "books" (displaying covers like one woudl see in a book store). The cookie functions such that the next time the browser clicks on the book from main book selection page, it will take them to the page they were on.

I know a bit about cookies, but think it would be better if someone who knows a lot about cookies could tell me where to look, and what I'd have to do.

I appreciate any advice / direction / help I can get.

Thank you!

Graeme

[ukgeoff]

A couple of things.

Firstly you don't 'click' cookies. They are a client side storage method which exists on the clients computer.

They can be set from JavaScript or by server side scripts such as php.

The second thing is that although the user can control, through browser options, what action is to be taken when a cookie is to be set, which of course might be don't, EU law now requires that you offer the user an alternative. Having said that, I've yet to see any degree of enforcement of this.

So if the user doesn't want you setting cookies, what are you going to do? Limit the usefulness of the site or offer an alternative.

Most good books, and probably tutorial sites, on JavaScript will have a section on cookies. You will need to look elsewhere if you want to control them from server side.

[graeme]

Hi Geoff,

Thanks for that. Based on what I've described, what do you think I would need to make that happen? I just figured with my best educated guess that it would be a cookie that would "remember" the page the next time the user went to the website. I very much want this feature, but not sure how to go about it. I program myself - so everything I do I educate myself on / sort out how to accomplish each challenge that I come across.

To reiterate: you click the "bookmark" buttom / link, are taken back to the main page which displays all the books, and the next time you return to the website or click on that particular book, it opens to the page where you were when you "bookmarked" it. This is very important for what I am doing with my website - I am creating a virtual bookstore where browsers can view all books for sale in their entirety just like they would in a bookstore.

I appreciate your comments / suggestions.

Thank you,

Graeme

[ukgeoff]

I assume you are only going to remember their place in one book at a time.

You could explain the availability of this feature to your users and ask them if they would prefer you to set a cookie as a reminder of have them register and login and keep the related book information in a server side database.