a website skin... hard?

Anon

Hi, i'm thinking of making a selectable css style sheet, and then giving the information to the PHP file, is that possible? and how exactly?

i don't really have a clue about this one 🙁
i think i have to make, say 2, stylesheets, and then putting the info in the PHP file, and have the user select a stylesheet, and save it with a cookie.

Problem there, though, is that i want my site to be COMPLETELY server sided, so that means NO cookies :s

Anyone???

thanks in advance.

Bjorn,
Not a newbie, but not smart enough to be good :p

Anon

Dear Bjorn,

I do not realy get your point. But what I understand is that you would like to have some information (which style-sheet someone prefers) to be stored, not client-sided (so I think server-sided)?!?

I should make a database with IP-adres and prefered style-sheet collumns.

But than U still have 1 little problem! Those who don't have a fixed-IP!

Hope (don't think so) I was helpfull

Gr.

Kasper

Anon

Well, that's not really what i ment.
i want to have visitors select it once (until their ip changes, probably), and that it stays like they wanted on every page.
but, creating the style sheets isn't the problem, the problem is :

HOW do i make every page know what sheet they have to use?

(i remind you : i do NOT have access to a mysql or postgre DB, and i do NOT want to have cookies send to the user)

maybe it has to write an ip into a text file with the preferred style sheet, but that STILL doesn't solve my real problem:

How do i change the style on all pages using PHP?

thanks for trying though, and i hope it's somewhat clearer now.

[deleted]

"HOW do i make every page know what sheet they have to use?"

Just write the name of the stylesheet (NOT the name of the FILE) in a cookie and use that to print the stylesheet tag.

cordex

Or, append to every link a variable like this:

Anon

ummmm

1) i did NOT want to use cookies
2) the user has to be able to CHOOSE the stylesheet for the entire site (from a predefined selection)

So, unless i'm mis-reading, your idea isn't what i asked 🙂

Anon

did you try it with sessions ?
you could open a session, set a session var and give this var a value. (e.g the name or the location of the chosen css file).

I know you'll get some session-cookies, but otherwise i won't be able to give you a answer that would make sense from my point of view.

hope i could help you

Anon

that would be good, IF i wanted to use cookies.
i appreciate the help, but my goal for the site is to make it as little client sided as possible (meaning: no cookies, no preloading elements, no browser dependencies)

Now, it may be impossible, but i doubt it is.
i just can't see a clear answer, and it seems that i'm not the only one 😉

I'm very glad that you guys r trying to help, and i'm pretty sure that there will be an answer sooner or later 🙂

maybe (gotta help me out here) if i'd put a variable in the page? (i've got the entire site into 1 file) and that variable could be changed by clicking a selection?
that would then be set on the server somewhere, remembering the selection, perhaps???

i'm just guessing, so, plz, try and help me out here 🙂

thx.

Anon

Bjorn I think you need to read the replies once again there are two answers to your questions that can be applied to your site and both are server-side.

Ben's Reply Is Server Side: If a user selects a skin style, place the users choice within the the URL.

This means every URL on your site will have to have something like the following:

http://yoursite/?skin=users_choice

Al's Reply Is Server Side: If you know PHP and how sessions worked, you would realize that it can be server-side by using two different session methods..

Anon

yes, ok, but like i said in my first message : i'm not a newbie, but i am still learning a lot of PHP, so...
Sessions is probably a bit to high for me, however with ben's answer, i could work it out.

but how do i keep every URL using that?

(and keep in mind : my ENTIRE site is already in 1 file, so it's always using a
?page= variable, so... can you enter multiple variables? )

like i said, i ain't smart 😉

mrich

Yes, it's called a query string. Make all your links look like: "mypage.php?var1=val1&var2=val2&var3=val3" etc. Notice that the '&' character separates all key=value pairs. Then your variables will show up in the $HTTP_GET_VARS array as well as the $var1, $var2, $var3 variables is register_globals is on.

The thing I'm not getting is why you're so averse to using cookies. Cookies are a Good Thing. They make it possible to maintain state in HTTP transactions. You should give your users the ability to choose which stylesheet they want to use and the option to use a cookie to save their choice. That way, you're not forcing the cookie on them, but users who don't want to have to choose their stylesheet on every visit to your site will not have to.

My advice is to tell your users if they don't use cookies, they don't get to use the fancy features of your site, like your custom stylesheet. Because I guarantee any other scheme is going to break at some point.

Anon

I don't know, matthew. In my experience, cookies have not always been a Good Thing.

[deleted]

The only 'bad' thing about cookies is that the can be refused by the client, but you can check for that and inform the user.

Other than that there is nothing against using cookies. Some people are paranoid about cookies and think that if they allow cookies the entire world suddenly knows every move they make on the net.

[deleted]

Well, like the others said;
if you don't use cookies you will have to send everything again and again in every url and every form on your website.

So I suggest you save yourself a ton of trouble and use cookies.

Anon

Using sessions still sounds like the optimal solution to me; you can write the script so that it degrades gracefully in the presence of a browser that doesn't do cookies (by sticking the session_id in the URL as part of a querystring (see the URL to this page to seen an example of a querystring!)).

But the fundamental point is that client is going to have to do something. http is stateless - it's a basic principle of the protocol that client-server interactions are entirely independent of each other. The server doesn't know one client from the next - it can guess but a guess is all it would be - unless the client is provided with some means with which to identify itself to the server.

I say session variables would be the best solution.

[deleted]

If the 'skin' was customizable yes.
But if there is just a choice of 'skin A' or 'Skin B' then a simple cookie containing 'A' or 'B' would be enough. (saves some CPU time loading the session for every request)