Question

I want to have the div #topmessage slide down on the users second visit to the site. Also when the user clicks the #close the message will not be shown again. I guess I have to set a cookie and count it but not sure how. I have the following cookie plugin installed together with jquery http://plugins.jquery.com/files/jquery.cookie.js.txt

    <script type="text/javascript">
    jQuery(function($){ 
    $('#topmessage').delay(1000).slideDown(400);
    $("#close").click(function(){
          $("#topmessage").slideToggle(400);
        });

});
</script>
<div id="topmessage">
<a href="#" class="close" id="close">Close</a>
Hi welcome back, if you have any questions please feel free to <a href="/contact">contact me</a>.
</div>

Update: The reason I want to do this is to push the div to users who have visited the site once and are now returning on another date. I don’t just want to show the div the second time the site is loaded, but it has to be on another date or session as well. As far as I can see there is no way to access the creation date of a cookie?

Answer 1

This should work:

<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function(){
        var value = $.cookie('the_cookie'),
            date = null;
        if (/^\d+$/.test(value || "")) {
             date = new Date();
             date.setTime(value);
        } else if ((value || "") == "") {
             $.cookie('the_cookie', new Date().getTime());
        }

        if (null != date /* && date meets your requirements */){
            $('#topmessage').delay(1000).slideDown(400);
            $("#close").click(function(){
                $("#topmessage").slideToggle(400);
            });
        }
    });
</script>

If you want to update the date in the cookie at each visit:

        if (/^\d+$/.test(value || "")) {
             date = new Date();
             date.setTime(value);
        }
        $.cookie('the_cookie', new Date().getTime());

Working demo at: http://jsfiddle.net/roberkules/NL9jd/

UPDATE

added expiration date and path to cookie
added 2nd cookie just for the session