Allowing a script to run only once...

"plato" <platoTAKETHISOUT@telpacific.com.au> wrote in
news:42036279@news.rivernet.com.au:

> My site is predominantly php...photo gallery... and the index page
> displays thumbs ( at random) from each of the 20 galleries. When
> people click on a gallery they go to that gallery to look at paintings
> and ultimately come back to Home which is the index page.
>
> I want to run a javascript on the index page that will only run when
> they arrive at the site, not again when they return to the index
> page... can someone tell me how I accomplish this.

PHP questions would best be asked in a PHP newsgroup ;-)

When http://www.example.com/index.php is requested,
it checks for the existance of a session variable
(e.g. "been_here_already"). If it exists, the PHP
script generates the page, without the javascript.
If the "been_here_already" session variable does
not exist, then create it, and generate the page,
including the javascript. You'll have to pay
attention to caching issues.

Of course that is predicated on sessions, so it depends
on what you mean by "arrive at the site".

And, as you should never be reliant on javascript anyway,
why not just have the PHP script do whatever it is you
want to do with the javascript.

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org/
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/

"Gerry for email use my name at dergal dt com" <sales@exleaseit.co.uk> wrote
in message news:Q8KMd.288$V84.246@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
> plato wrote:
> > My site is predominantly php...photo gallery... and the index page
displays
> > thumbs ( at random) from each of the 20 galleries. When people click on
a
> > gallery they go to that gallery to look at paintings and ultimately come
> > back to Home which is the index page.
> >
> > I want to run a javascript on the index page that will only run when
they
> > arrive at the site, not again when they return to the index page... can
> > someone tell me how I accomplish this.
> >
> > cheers
> >
> > Plato
> >
> >
> Completely honestly - you can't ...
>
> However by checking against IP addresses, or cookies you sort of can -
> i.e. create a cookie, Alternatively - could all your "homepage" links be
> a different homepage?
>
> G

Thanks Gerry, no unfortunately the homepage links need to be same...I was
thinking along the cookie lines but have created one of those yet...
thanks
plato

plato wrote:

> I want to run a javascript on the index page that will only run when they
> arrive at the site, not again when they return to the index page... can
> someone tell me how I accomplish this.

Javascript should do this:

if (some cookie is not set) {
do your stuff;
set the cookie;
}

Of course, you'll probably want to figure out something to do with people
who have cookies disabled.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact