Although cookies is an option, as you are aware, I wouldn't use cookies because you most probably will have probelms with users who have cookies disabled or who clear them at some stage for any reason.
I would prefer to do something like this:
The page containing the checkboxes;
home.php
<?php
session_start();
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
<script type="text/javascript">
window.onload=function() {
//now assign the previously checked boxes
<?php
foreach($_SESSION['chkBoxes'] as $k => $v) {
if($v == 1) {
echo 'document.getElementById("'.$k.'").checked = true;';
} else {
echo 'document.getElementById("'.$k.'").checked = false;';
}
}
?>
}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function saveStatus(elem) {
var xmlHttp = null;
try{
// Firefox, Opera 8.0+, Safari Browsers
xmlHttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
catch (e){
try{
// IE Browsers v6+
xmlHttp =new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
}
catch (e)
{
try{
// IE Browsers v5+
xmlHttp =new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
catch (e)
{
alert("Your browser does not support AJAX!");
}
}
}
var stat = (elem.checked)? 1: 0;
var url = "saveStatus.php?id="+elem.id+"&status="+stat;
xmlHttp.open("GET",url,false);
xmlHttp.send(null);
} //end of ajax function
//-->
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form action="test.php" method="post" />
<div>
<input type="checkbox" name="chkBox[]" id="chk_1" value="chk_1" onclick="saveStatus(this)" /> chkbox 1<br />
<input type="checkbox" name="chkBox[]" id="chk_2" value="chk_2" onclick="saveStatus(this)" /> chkbox 2<br />
<input type="checkbox" name="chkBox[]" id="chk_3" value="chk_3" onclick="saveStatus(this)" /> chkbox 3<br />
<input type="checkbox" name="chkBox[]" id="chk_4" value="chk_4" onclick="saveStatus(this)" /> chkbox 4<br />
</div>
</form>
<div>
<a href="test2.php">Go to to test2.php</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>
On page load, the checkbox statuses are set according to the values in the session array storing the status of each checkbox.
When you click a checkbox, an ajax request is sent to saveStatus.php to update the status of the clicked checkbox in the session array storing the status of each checkbox.
saveStatus.php
<?php
session_start();
$key = $_GET['id'];
$_SESSION['chkBoxes'][$key] = $_GET['status'];
?>
test2.php
just a test page to navigate away from home and back to test if the status of checkbox has been saved
<?php
session_start();
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<a href="home.php">Go to Home</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>
This all works on my local XAMPP server.