Use sessions to maintain menu persistence

[TheMusician]

Hello,

I have created a typical expanding/collapsing menu using HTML/CSS/Javascript. After a user clicks on the menu I would like the menu to persist, stay open, when the new page is loaded. I believe the correct way to do this is to use php sessions. I understand how sessions work, but do not know what variables I would need to store. The menu is four levels deep at places.

Here is a small portion of the menu.

<li class="treenode">
	<a href="#">Mayor</a>
		<ul>
			<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">Budget</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">Biography</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">Message</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">Newsletters</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">Quickfacts</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">City Council</a></li>
		</ul>
	</li>

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what actually will need to be stored in a session to open the menu to a specific location.

Thank you for your help.

[kromey]

Actually, I think JavaScript would be a better choice for this, as I take it that your menu expands/collapses without sending anything back to the server (where PHP lives). I suggest taking this question over to the JavaScript forum and I'm sure someone there can hook you up.

[TheMusician]

I agree it can be done with Javascript but I do not want to use session cookies as some users turn them off. The menu degrades to a list when Javascript is turned off. Using PHP sessions I believe will offer the user a better experience.

Thank you,

Max

[kromey]

PHP sessions use session cookies, unless you allow them in URL which is strongly recommended against. So you're stuck either relying on cookies (hardly anyone these days turns cookies off), or opening up egregious security holes in your application.

[clamcrusher]

ive never done this before but assuming javascript is what does the menu expanding/collapsing, you will need to store enough data to let javascript expand the proper nodes. you could create some type of node path i suppose.

thinking about it, it seems complex to make this work correctly if you may have multiple/different menus and want it to work correctly if the user has multiple browser windows open. i suppose a little serverside assistance could help, for example by outputting a unique id for the menu on each page view, and using that id to select which of the stored node paths to use.

retrieving the node path could be done either by storing them in a cookie(however beware of data limits with cookies), or possibly storing them serverside, and polling the server with ajax.

[TheMusician]

Ok, I have quickly become confused. I will explore doing this with Javascript but at the same time this seems like a perfectly valid use of sessions with PHP.

Clamcrusher

outputting a unique id for the menu on each page view, and using that id to select which of the stored node paths to use

What clamcrusher mentions is what I was thinking about, but still can not get my head around. I will ponder and play with it some more.

Thank you

[UFTimmy]

Ok, I have quickly become confused. I will explore doing this with Javascript but at the same time this seems like a perfectly valid use of sessions with PHP.

If you're using SESSIONs, you're using cookies. They are correct -- this is what Javascript is made for. If you use Sessions for this you're going to have to round trip back to the server every time the user expands or collapses a menu, which would be expensive and unneccessary.

The user closes the menu -- Javascript sets a cookie. The user expands the menu, Javascript sets a cookie. This is what Javascript was made for.