vBulletin Message: All cookies cleared!

[vistamaster]

Wow, I've just logged out accidently from community.actinic.com and noticed a very (IMO) useful "Automtic Cookie Deletion" :

vBulletin Message
All cookies cleared!

Wonder, if it's possible to implement this thing on actinic's catalog so when the browser is closed, the cookies are deleted?

Any oppinions/ideas on this?

[Mike Hughes]

Wonder, if it's possible to implement this thing on actinic's receipt page?

AFAIK the cookie is already cleared after checkout.

Mike

[leehack]

The product details are cleared but address details are kept i think, unless of course you select to not be remembered. Once you've been through a checkout in actinic, it is always filled out for you next time IME.

[vistamaster]

Ok, I found on the net:

A function to delete a cookie
Another useful cookie-handling function is provided below. This function will "delete" the supplied cookie from the browser by setting the cookie's expiry date to one second in the past.

function delete_cookie ( cookie_name )
{
  var cookie_date = new Date ( );  // current date & time
  cookie_date.setTime ( cookie_date.getTime() - 1 );
  document.cookie = cookie_name += "=; expires=" + cookie_date.toGMTString();
}

To use this function, just pass in the name of the cookie you would like to delete.

Now the question is... how many cookies actinic creates before customer reaches receipt page? and what are their names?

and would this code delete the cookie after the browser is closed?

[vistamaster]

The product details are cleared but address details are kept i think, unless of course you select to not be remembered. Once you've been through a checkout in actinic, it is always filled out for you next time IME.

Scenario:

We do regular updates for our site and after updation we clear the browser cookies or refresh the page atleast to view the updated changes, knowing already that the content has been updated.

But how will the clients or other viewers who are regular visitors of our site know the updated changes, who may not refresh or clear the cookies ?

[Mike Hughes]

Cookies are only used to store what's been added to the cart or the customers address. They don't affect what's being displayed on your actinic site. (forums are different because they display different things depending on what threads you've viewed and what your order preferences, etc are)

Mike

[leehack]

Scenario:

We do regular updates for our site and after updation we clear the browser cookies or refresh the page atleast to view the updated changes, knowing already that the content has been updated.

But how will the clients or other viewers who are regular visitors of our site know the updated changes, who may not refresh or clear the cookies ?

You are confusing cookies with cached page info here, they are very different. Removal of a cookie will do zilch about a cached page in a browser.

[vistamaster]

You are confusing cookies with cached page info here, they are very different. Removal of a cookie will do zilch about a cached page in a browser.

I see... Which means a meta tag will do the job i want... Any side effects in actinics performance you could think of?

[NormanRouxel]

Now the question is... how many cookies actinic creates before customer reaches receipt page? and what are their names?

Stick:

<script>document.write(document.cookie);</script>

Into your overall layout and it will display it.

[leehack]

I see... Which means a meta tag will do the job i want... Any side effects in actinics performance you could think of?

Just the overall page load time as scripts and stylesheets all need to be downloaded each time meaning things are slower and excessive bandwidth use is suffered. I seem to recall one of the meta refresh options is badly frowned upon by SEs as they see it as one of the porn-type redirect thingymajobs (Jont explained these to me, i'd never seen it myself).

From memory i think javascript method of refresh was suggested as the best way, but don't quote me on that, you'd need to research it.

[vistamaster]

Thanks Lee

[Lisa Carey]

I have been using

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache">
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache">

to ensure customers are looking at the latest content, with no obvious ill-effects, but if there is a better way I'd be grateful to hear about it