scriptygoddess

1 | Lynda

May 6th, 2002 at 3:50 pm

Okay, so when a user vists your site they get assigned an ID per cookie that gets passed from page to page and expires when they close their browser, is that correct? Or is it more long-term and recognizes people when they come back?

What I've seen this used for most often is to track the path people take on your page. Helpful for people who want to know how their visitors are using their site.

Are you more interested in back-end sorts of things or added functionality for the user on the site? Or just whatever?

2 | Amy

May 6th, 2002 at 4:04 pm

In my case, I've got session IDs set up to be a bit more permanent, but you're right…they can be either.

I think my initial focus should probably be user functionality. Site stats and such are kinda secondary, since most people probably have really good tracking software already in use.

3 | Lynda

May 6th, 2002 at 4:07 pm

Might be able to mark off what pages they've already been to and then if the page is less than "x" days old (so that really old pages don't keep showing up when the user deletes their cookies or the session id expires) display a little section of "new" or "unread" articles.

Make any sense?

4 | kristine

May 6th, 2002 at 4:45 pm

I know you already said you were looking for user functionality over stats, but here's a thought…
Would something like this allow you to track a user to see which pages are traveled in which order? It might be an interesting analysis to see how people travel through the site. Maybe then you could display something on the top of the page to the person upon re-entry that said "You last visited the Skins tutorial page 4 – would you like to go back to that page?"

Or maybe to be annoying :giggle: you could take snapshots of the regularl visitors sites, display them when they arrive, and say "na na nananna na I know where you're from." LOLOL, I'm just kidding!

5 | Jennifer

May 6th, 2002 at 8:47 pm

Actually, I'm doing something similar with cookie ID's – the two-fold purpose I have for them is 1) that restricted access and 2) so I can track users.

Once upon a time I had planned on somehow having it WRITE to a mySQL database and have it be a real visitor tracker – see who came – how often that user comes – what pages they visit (I'm pretty nosey, aren't I! LOL!)

I had thought about having a web interface to manage all the different views.

I only got as far as it writing the cookie id of the user, the time of their visit, their referral link (if there was one) and what page they visited – all onto a text file.

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it if we could actually do that script. I got so fed up with the whole mySQL thing, but it's one of the things I love most about PHP, that it can actually write to a database!!! Now, if only I knew a little more about DATABASES!

6 | Jennifer

May 6th, 2002 at 8:48 pm

Ok… I really want that script… can I beg a little more?? Please!! Pllleeease!!! 😀

LOL!

7 | markguy

September 6th, 2002 at 9:40 pm

Found this page while searching for the best way to use cookies for both session information and to allow folks to skip logging in again for their next session. Which, unfortunately, this page doesn't help with 😉

However, what's the issue with mySQL? If you can write your info to a text file, you can write it to mySQL with a fairly bare minimum of SQL knowledge.

Lack of SQL expertise? If you don't want to wade through the multitude of tutorials, I can probably give you the SQL you need to do the inserts and selects fairly easily.

Anyway, would be nice to be able to fix *a* problem, if not *my* problem

8 | Ulrik

November 26th, 2003 at 7:50 pm

Hi!

I have created a php form-mail script for one of my friends, but (for reasons of fright of online spamming…!) need to protect this form mail with a cookie, so you can only use the form once every hour (or two or three hours – whatever she decides). Is there any help out there??

9 | jrlo

May 30th, 2004 at 7:35 pm

Ulrik :

best bet is to set a cookie, and also store their IP address. This way, if the cookie gets erased the block still lasts, and if their ip changes, the cookie is still there as a backup. deleting the cookie AND changing the IP require a lot more effort on the spammer's part, and likely wouldnt happen.