Following my request, several members of the JavaScript group have contributed generously to the creation of a really useful (for me, that is...) script that enables me to write highly dynamic pages for my PANTACYCLOPEDIA (short: P), ook book-like structure I am busy preparing - see thread 'A real challenge for JavaScript magicians' in the JS group
So I decided to make another request. Unfortunately, this was less successful, possibly because the thing I have in mind simply cannot bedone in JavaScript. So I thought: why deny the members of the other groups this - think - very interesting challenge?
This is my request: for P, I would like to have a mechanism that
- keeps track of exactly which pages my reader has already read and which (s)he hasn't seen yet, and
- uses this 'reading history' to either deny or permit this particular reader access to other parts of the book.
- Of course, this 'intelligent' selector should work in every platform, if possible.
See what I mean? I want P to be 'a book with a memory' - the reader reads the book, the book reads the reader (that's about as interactive as one can get!).
The reason for this wish probably is quite obvious to you smart guys (and gals) out there: certain chapters in P are rather difficult to grasp without some prior knowledge that is to be found in other chapters. In other words: in my ideal P, only by reading chapter A, one can earn the right to delve into chapter B - not unlike to what happens in some computer games such as MYST.
I am a 100% programming analphabetic (well, almost), but I assume that such a system could work on the basis of putting the value of some variables into cookies - of course, the book will have to ask its reader politely for his or her permission to use cookies. Other pages, menu pages for instance, could then use these values to decide which navigation buttons are being shown when the reader opens the menu page concerned, and which aren't, thereby guiding the reader gently in the optimal direction.
you need server side programming with sessions enabled and database of some kind involved.This type of persistenace can not be achieved using any other means( cookies on client side can be disabled)
Sounds rather complicated for a non-programmer like me, Khalid... Thanks, anyway. Any advice as to how I could get this done? (Hire a real programmer? That's out of the question: I'm just a soloist, with no sponsor or anything to back me up.)(...yet.)(Interested parties are invited to get in touch!)
Jan van Erp if you want a cheap coder try this place I requested some work here the prices varied from $800 down to $35 for the same job ended up being done by some russian fer the $35 and the work was great. always worth atry you dont have to take any offers.
How about setting some hidden values in the page itself???i mean <input type="hidden"> this is a good way to pass values around between pages, when u dont want to use cookies and dont want to get into the Session variables fundas...
with every page you can set a hidden value..and it gets submitted everytime the page data is submitted without the reader/user ever knowing
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