Persistence (like cookies or a session) across browser access

[FourEyes]

I need to create easy access to a shopping cart at the click of a link/bookmark. I would love to see a popup window come up or some other kind of access to a specific webpage *WITHOUT* making users navigate away from whatever other page they've been on (i.e., if they're reading Wikipedia, or sending email, or just elsewhere on line).

I'm creating a "one stop webshop" of user signatures that will carry strong significance for certain users, and they will want to be able to access their "shopping cart" with ease, copy the material (like one would YouTube video html code), and then paste it in their blog or email or whatever.

Ideally, they would be able to access the page with ease, it would remember who they are (cookies), and bring up their selection(s) so they can quickly copy and paste.

The problem is, I have no idea how to do this! I've been racking my brain for a quick fix. At first I thought maybe with links/bookmarks? Is there someway to build something that persistent? Does this make any sense at all? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[bathurst_guy]

I don't understand.

[ray326]

Yes. Store the shopping cart content in a database with the value of the cookie being the key.

[FourEyes]

I think i need to be clearer. Let me see if I can spell it out better. Here's an example:

Let's say that previously, somebody has signed up at a website that might be similar to something like this: http://www.t-shirts.com/ (Though this isn't the website I am building, it's just a sort-of similar example.)
After signing up on the website (creating an account), the person places several "items" in the shopping cart. What these items are is important, and I'll come back to this to help it make more sense.
Let's say a few days later this person is composing an email online at a totally different website, such as Gmail or Yahoo! They aren't even visiting the former site where there "items" are stored.
Suddenly that person remembers the items and wants to go get them.
Here's the problem: WITHOUT NAVIGATING AWAY from Yahoo! or Gmail or whatever site they are visiting, I need for them to be able to jump directly to the site where their cart is full of items, in some new popup window or something like that.
My question is, can I do this with a bookmark or link?


I realize I may be proposing something impossible since it might boil down to browser limitations, though it OUGHT to be possible. It doesn't even have to be done with a link, if somebody can think up a better solution. The point is they need to navigate from ANY given site to this shopping cart site WITHOUT losing where they are originally. I know this is one purpose of popups, not to mention asynchronous AJAX, but is it possible to do with just a bookmark link?

To explain what the items are and why this type of navigation is important...I'm only using the t-shirt website as an example...really, the final website will be a place to shop for "electronic items" where people can put pictures, video, and other web products in their shopping cart. The product is actually a cart full of "electronic signatures" that people design. There are a number of people who will want to use these signatures for a specific purpose to promote who they are and what they are doing. Kind of like self advertisement, only this will be a group effort, and there is a large group of people who will be using them. So they'll have a slogan with a picture of some file, etc., that they can paste at the end of an email or blog.

The point in not navigating away is EASE OF USE. I would love it for people to just CLICK and pull up their cart/basket, copy the item, and then paste it into email/blog. Kind of like people paste YouTube videos into their email/blog/website.

Does this make better sense?

[FourEyes]

Nevermind!

I found the answer over here:

http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showpost.php?p=716708&postcount=2

;)