I've seen this posted a few times, but I wasn't able to get the code working at all.
I need help making this drop down menu save its settings to a cookie, so when the user visits the site again, their previous selection is retained.
Dropdown:
<select id="ThemeSelect">
<option value="zelda">Zelda</option>
<option value="smb2">SMB 2</option>
</select>
For reference, this code is with some Javascript in a Wordpress widget that changes the css code, like a theme selector.
How would I make this save as a cookie? I feel like I've tried everything!
EDIT:
I should have said, but I use this code to change the CSS:
var saveclass = null;
var sel = document.getElementById('ThemeSelect');
sel.onchange = function(){
saveclass = saveclass ? saveclass : document.body.className;
document.body.className = saveclass + ' ' + sel.value;
};
Something along these lines should work for you. The function to create a cookie via javascript was found in
Setting a Cookie from JavaScript, a post on javascripter.net.
HTML:
<select id="ThemeSelect" onchange="setCookie('theme', this.value, 365);">
<option value="zelda">Zelda</option>
<option value="smb2">SMB 2</option>
</select>
Javascript:
function setCookie(cookieName, cookieValue, nDays) {
var today = new Date();
var expire = new Date();
if (!nDays)
nDays=1;
expire.setTime(today.getTime() + 3600000*24*nDays);
document.cookie = cookieName+"="+escape(cookieValue) + ";expires="+expire.toGMTString();
}
Edit:
Save the cookie
I have merged the two functions into one for you.
HTML:
<select id="ThemeSelect" onchange="saveTheme(this.value);">
<option value="zelda">Zelda</option>
<option value="smb2">SMB 2</option>
</select>
Javascript:
var saveclass = null;
function saveTheme(cookieValue)
{
var sel = document.getElementById('ThemeSelect');
saveclass = saveclass ? saveclass : document.body.className;
document.body.className = saveclass + ' ' + sel.value;
setCookie('theme', cookieValue, 365);
}
function setCookie(cookieName, cookieValue, nDays) {
var today = new Date();
var expire = new Date();
if (nDays==null || nDays==0)
nDays=1;
expire.setTime(today.getTime() + 3600000*24*nDays);
document.cookie = cookieName+"="+escape(cookieValue) + ";expires="+expire.toGMTString();
}
Live DEMO
Read the cookie on return to the page
Thanks to dunsmoreb
We can get the cookie using this function, shamelessly stolen from this question.
function readCookie(name) {
var nameEQ = name + "=";
var ca = document.cookie.split(';');
for(var i = 0; i < ca.length; i++) {
var c = ca[i];
while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') c = c.substring(1, c.length);
if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.length, c.length);
}
return null;
}
Then we need to select the value when the page loads. The following code will accomplish just that:
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
var themeSelect = document.getElementById('ThemeSelect');
var selectedTheme = readCookie('theme');
themeSelect.value = selectedTheme;
saveclass = saveclass ? saveclass : document.body.className;
document.body.className = saveclass + ' ' + selectedTheme;
});
Live DEMO
Note: This answers adds to Josh Mein's answer. Feel free to merge it.
We can get the cookie using this function, shamelessly stolen from this question.
function readCookie(name) {
var nameEQ = name + "=";
var ca = document.cookie.split(';');
for(var i = 0; i < ca.length; i++) {
var c = ca[i];
while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') c = c.substring(1, c.length);
if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.length, c.length);
}
return null;
}
Then we need to select the value when the page loads. The following code will accomplish just that.
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
var themeSelect = document.getElementById('ThemeSelect');
var selectedTheme = readCookie('theme');
if (selectedTheme) {
themeSelect.value = selectedTheme;
}
});
You should look into creating Session variables in PHP.
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_sessions.asp
You can save variables to a session and when you load the page, you check the value of the variable you set, depending on it's value, the dropdown could behave a certain way. Maybe store the name of the dropdown item as a session variable?