Question

Alright, I’ll try and keep this simple and sweet. I am working on my wesbsite, and it currently loads a splash page when the user first loads the site. That is the behavior I want.

1. if the user has never been to the site before, redirect to splash page.
2. if user has been to the site before and did not want to see the splash don’t redirect.
3. if user likes splash and wants to see upon new session, show splash page.

those basically the scenarios i am working with, can’t really think of any more, been trying to hack something out for the past couple of hours with no luck.

index.php

<?php
setcookie("visit", "true", mktime (0, 0, 0, 12, 31, 2014), "/"); // delete cookie on 31DEC14

$cookie_splash = $_COOKIE['splash'];
$cookie_visit = $_COOKIE['visit'];
$cookie_visit_now = $_COOKIE['visit_now'];

do {

    if ($cookie_splash == '' && $cookie_visit == '' && $cookie_visit_now == '') {
        /*
        echo "<script type = text/javascript>";
        echo "window.location = 'http://chrisrjones.com/splash.php'";
        echo "</script>";
        */
        header('Location: splash.php');
    }

    if ( $cookie_splash == 'false' && $cookie_visit_now == 'true') {
    break;
    }

    if ( $cookie_splash == 'true' && $cookie_visit_now == 'false') {
        /*
        echo "<script type = text/javascript>";
        echo "window.location = 'http://chrisrjones.com/splash.php'";
        echo "</script>";
        */
        header('Location: splash.php');
    }

    if ( $cookie_splash == 'true' && $cookie_visit == 'true' && $cookie_visit_now == "false") {
        /*
        echo "<script type = text/javascript>";
        echo "window.location = 'http://chrisrjones.com/splash.php'";
        echo "</script>";
        */
        header('Location: splash.php');
    }

    if ($cookie_splash == 'true' && $cookie_visit == 'true' && $cookie_visit_now == 'true') {
        break;
    }
}
while (0);




?>

splash.php

<p>
    <form name="tosplashornottosplash" action="scripts/splash-process.php" method="post" onSubmit="return valForm()">
    Splash pages are stupid.

    <input type="radio" name="splash" id="splash_false" value="false" /> No
    <input type="radio" name="splash" id="splash_true" value="true" /> Yes

    <input type="submit" name="splashSubmit" onClick="return valForm(tosplashornottosplash)" value="Enter" />
    </form>
    </p>

splash-process.php

    <?php 

    setcookie("visit", "true", mktime (0, 0, 0, 12, 31, 2014), "/"); // delete cookie on 31DEC14
    setcookie("visit_now", "true", NULL, '/'); // cookie should expire / delete at end of session.


    $splashvar = $_POST["splash"];

    if ( $splashvar == "false" ) {
        // create cookie - splash 1
        setcookie("splash", "true", time()+3600, '/'); // expires in one hour
    }
        else {
            // create cookie - splash 0
            setcookie("splash", "false", time()+3600, '/'); // expires in one hour
        }

    echo "<script type = text/javascript>";
    echo "window.location = 'http://chrisrjones.com/index.php'";
    echo "</script>";

    ?>

Go to chrisrjones.com to see what I’m talking about.

Answer 1

Alright, so I think the problem wasn’t with my code, but rather understanding how browsers behave. If I go to the site (chrisrjones.com) as of right now in FF 18.0.2 and select “No” on splash pages are stupid, then I can enter the site once I click enter.

However if I leave the tab open, and have FF set to leave tabs open on restart (whatever it’s called you know what I mean), and quit FF, then relaunch it the session cookies never expire. So when I refresh the page thus the splash page isn’t loaded. However, if I close the tab then quit the browser then reload the page, the splash page is loaded. (Which is what I want).

Chrome on the other hand appears to not delete session cookie’s once the browser is closed, so that’s why I was having such difficulty with Chrome.

I now have a better understanding as why things are behaving the way they are, and realize it wasn’t all my poor coding practice.