Building a 'Recently Viewed Items' Panel

Tim_L

Hi guys,

I'm currently trying to build a 'Recently viewed items' sidebar on my website. Similar to amazon.com's and various other websites.

I haven't tried doing anything yet and I'm not great with PHP.

Couple of q's:

Is this going to be too hard?
Anyone kind enough to give me a headstart with some code?

Thanks for any replies...

tsinka

Hi,

assuming that you store the items in a database table you could add a timestamp or datetime column to that table and store the current date/time in that column each time someone views an item.

To get the x most recently viewed items you can use a query like

SELECT itemname FROM itemtable ORDER BY datetimefield DESC LIMIT x

Fetch the records and you have the x most recently viewed items.

Thomas

Tim_L

Thanks for your reply Thomas.

I should've said that I need the recently viewed items to be based on each individuals recently viewed items.

tsinka

Ok,

then don't use the database but create e.g. an array that contains the last n ids of items the customer viewed. Store this array in the session and change it each time a customer views another item. Use that array to build a list of recently viewed items.

Thomas

Tim_L

if($code) 
  { 
    // new item selected 
    // if not set create empty array 
    if(!isset($_SESSION['recent_list'])) 
    { 
      $_SESSION['recent_list'] = array(); 
      print_r($_SESSION['recent_list']); 
    } 
    // if set add code to beginning of array 
    // if code exists ignore 
    if(isset($_SESSION['recent_list'])) 
    { 
      if (in_array($code, $_SESSION['recent_list'])) 
       echo ''; 
      else   

       array_unshift($_SESSION['recent_list'], $code); 
       print_r($_SESSION['recent_list']); 
    } 
    // if total list is greater than or equal to 4 
    // pop one off the end 
    $count = (count($_SESSION['recent_list'])); 
    if($count >= 4) 
      array_pop($_SESSION['recent_list']); 
      print_r($_SESSION['recent_list']); 

  }

Ok I've got this code from another forum where someone was doing something similar. The only thing is I have no idea how to implement this into my website.

I've got a table sidebar on the left hand side of my page. Where should I start? Is this all the code I need?

If anyone has a little bit of time today to give a quick step by step I'd be SO appreciative!!!!!!!

tsinka

Hi,

you need a little bit more:

The code in your last post just maintains the array containing the last 4 items. Change it a little bit:

$code should be a variable that checks if the customer is viewing an item.

if($viewing_an_item)  

  {  

    // new item selected 
    // if not set create empty array 
    if(!isset($_SESSION['recent_list']))  

      $_SESSION['recent_list'] = array();

// if set add code to beginning of array 
// if code exists ignore 
if(isset($_SESSION['recent_list']))  
{  
  if (!in_array($itemid, $_SESSION['recent_list']))  
   array_unshift($_SESSION['recent_list'], $itemid); 
}

// if total list is greater than or equal to 4 
// pop one off the end 
$count = (count($_SESSION['recent_list']));  
if($count >= 4)  
  array_pop($_SESSION['recent_list']);  
  }

This will store an array containing the last 4 viewed items in a session.

Additionally, you need code that e.g. creates a table that displays the item info. If you just want to display a table containing a list of item names you can either create a function that fetches the needed item data from the database or from the session.

Example:

// view list
if (isset($_SESSION['recent_list']) && is_array($_SESSION['recent_list'])) {
  $ids = implode(",",$_SESSION['recent_list']);

  $sql = "SELECT id,name FROM table WHERE id IN ($ids)";
  $res = mysql_query($sql);
  while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($res)) {
    // echo table containing rows with the names and links to the view
    // item page using $row['id'] and $row['name']
  }
}

You can do that without the need to query the database if you change the first code example above to store both the id and the item name for each item in the session array.

Thomas

Tim_L

I still don't really understand how to exactly implement this. Would it be too much to ask to give the full code for the whole thing to work?

what do you mean by the view item variable? What would this be? 😕 😕 😕

tsinka

Hi,

the "view item" was just a guess that you might want to display a html table that lists that four item names including a link to the page that displays the details for an item so that the customers can click on an item name to see the details.

Give me a description of how the sidebar should look like and how you set up the tables and I'll try to give you some more code 🙂

I'll be out of the house for another hour or two but I will start with this as soon as I return.

Thomas

Tim_L

Thanks so much for your time tsinka:

I've got the main table sidebar setup and it would be good if the "recently viewed items" list could be in a table of two rows. The top row with the sm image of the product and the bottom row to be the product title with both the image and title linking to the product.

I hope that makes sense?

If you're still ok to help me this I would be very greatful!!!

Thanks...

tsinka

Hi,

so you want to display n recently viewed items each beside the other ?

Like this ?

<a>image1</a> .... <a>image2</a> ... <a>image3</a>
..................................................
<a>name1</a>  .... <a>name2</a>  ... <a>name3</a>

So basically what you need to do is each time someone views the details of an item add that item to the item array.

Second write a function that creates a html table with the images, names and links and use that function wherever you need it.

I'll give you an example, soon.

edit: After reading my post a second time I think you want to display the recently viewed items each below the other.

Thomas

tsinka

Hi,

here's an example. I didn't test it ... hope it works or at least points you in the right direction:

I assume that you have a script called viewitem.php that displays the details of an item depending on the GET parameter id:

First, put this code into viewitem.php (somewhere at the end) and make sure that $itemid,$itemname and $itemimage are available at the end of the script:

    $maxItems = 4;
    $arrRecent = array();
    // new item selected 
    // if not set create empty array 
    if(isset($_SESSION['recent_list']))   

      $arrRecent = $_SESSION['recent_list'];

// if set add code to beginning of array 
// if code exists ignore 
if (!array_key_exists($itemid, $arrRecent))   
  $arrRecent[$itemid] = array($itemname,$itemimage);  

// if total list is greater than or equal to 4 
// pop one off the end 
$cnt = count($arrRecent);   

if($count >= $maxItems)   
  array_pop($arrRecent);   

if ($cnt>0)
  $_SESSION['recent_list'] = $arrRecent;

Second use the following function that creates a HTML table and returns the HTML code. If your application is table based put the function call inside the td tags of the row where you want to display that list:

  function getRecentItems() {
    $retVal = "<table>";
    if (isset($_SESSION['recent_list'])) {
      while (list($id,$data) = each($_SESSION['recent_list'])) {
        $retVal .= <<<EOHTML
  <tr>
    <td>
      <a href='viewitem.php?id=$id'><img src='{$data[1]}' border='0'></a>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>
      <a href='viewitem.php?id=$id'>{$data[0]}</a>
    </td>
  </tr>
EOHTML;
      }
    } else {
      $retVal .= "<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>\n";
    }

$retVal .= "</table>\n";

return $retVal;
  }

make sure that there are no whitespaces at the end of the lines
$retVal .= <<<EOHTML
and
EOHTML;

Thomas

Tim_L

Thanks so much for your reply and taking the time to write all that code. Also apologies for my very late reply - my PC has recently gone down so needed to reformat and install everything from scratch.

One thing - what would go in the viewitem.php script. i have no clue what to put into this?

tsinka

Hi,

viewitem.php was just a guess ... do you have a script that displays the details of one item ?

Thomas