[RESOLVED] How do you allow users to change site skin?

nobackseat88

How do you allow visitors/users to chagne the site scheme/skin.
Using PHP and cookies, I think.

Thanks ahead of time for any possible help.

nobackseat88

Anybody have any urls or codes?

jkurrle

Don't have any codes, but you will need to use some sort of database to track your users, if you want their changes to be permanent to their login. Otherwise, on a per session basis, I'd use SESSION variables.

nobackseat88

Im not too wise at this. Any examples, or codes, please??

nobackseat88

http://www.jellyneo.net It's used here, but I need the source code.

Horizon88

Why don't you figure it out to a degree, then we can help you once you've got some code? Because if you just want theme scripts, you can look at hotscripts.com or any other php script repository - we're here to help you learn, not to write your code for you.

You'll want to come up with a template scheme - I used to do a directory ,templates, with the themes inside it, then I'd do something like this:

<?PHP
if (!isset($_SESSION['theme'])) {
   // default
   $_SESSION['theme'] = 'blue1';
}
$theme = $_SESSION['theme']
// later on in the HTML/CSS styles
echo '<link href="templates/'.$theme.'.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">';
?>

Go from there and we can help after that, if that doesn't do it entirely for you.

nobackseat88

Thanks, it's something. I've really looked and there's nothing else. Do you know where I could go for start off code then I'll come back here?

Horizon88

That code I gave you IS start code - that's basically all you'll need for a simple skinning system. Put it at the head of your pages, then set the appropriate style. Then somewhere in the body of one of your pages, add a form that simply sets a session variable denoting the selected theme.

nobackseat88

Could you give me a sample code of using cookies? Like isset or something, right?

NogDog

Here's a link to something I hacked together some time ago as a proof of concept sort of thing. It would not be too difficult, I think, to convert it to add a cookie setting that would be used if the style was not supplied via the URL query string.

http://www.charles-reace.com/test/css/

Horizon88

Why are you set on using cookies? Sessions work just as well and don't require anything from the user - I know I have sessions set to expire once I close Firefox, so I just always use sessions, since cookies aren't guaranteed to always be enabled/usable.

NogDog

Cookies would be a good solution if the objective is to have the "skin" selection persist for an extended period of time (i.e., beyond the length of the current session).

Horizon88

Yeah, I know, but I can't be the only person that sets cookies to expire after Firefox closes.

rikmoncur

tutorial:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/phpswitch

nobackseat88

Thank you, rikmoncur.
Just what I was looking for.

Horizon88

Don't forget to mark this resolved.