Personalising Wordpress Sessions Based on the Visited URLs

Question

first time Question asker here. I'm building a web page and want to change the text on page if the user has visited certain pages.

My initial idea was too create an array in the session which records each url as its visited with something like $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], which would probably work if it was a site I was building from scratch. however... Because the site is built in Wordpress I'm not 100% how to go about doing that within there system.

Answer 1

Now here's what I'd suggest you do. Navigate to your Theme and open the file functions.php Then find a suitable spot anywhere on the File (The bottom of the file wouldn't be that odd). Then, add the following functions:

    <?php

        // FILE-NAME: functions.php  <== LOCATED AT THE ___/wp-content/themes/your-theme-name 
        add_action("init",   "initiatePageLogging");

        function initiatePageLogging(){
            // START THE SESSION IF IT HAS NOT BEEN STARTED
            // THIS WOULD BE USED TO SHARE DATA ACROSS YOUR PAGES...
            if (session_status() == PHP_SESSION_NONE  || session_id() == '') {
                session_start();
            }

            // CHECK THAT THE SESSION VARIABLE FOR OUR PAGE-LOGGING IS THERE
            // IF NOT CREATE IT
            if(!isset($_SESSION['visitedPages'])){
                // IT DOES NOT EXIST SO WE CREATE IT & INITIALIZE IT AS AN EMPTY ARRAY
                $_SESSION['visitedPages'] = array();
            }
            // NO NEED TO KEEP THE SESSION ARRAY $_SESSION['visitedPages'] TOO LONG
            // SO WE TRIM IT OUT CONDITIONALLY TO KEEP IT UNDER CHECK
            if(count($_SESSION['visitedPages']) >= 10){
                // WE REMOVE ABOUT 7 ELEMENTS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE ARRAY
                // LEAVING JUST THE LAST 3 - NOW THAT'S COOL...
                $arrVisitedPages            = $_SESSION['visitedPages'];
                array_splice($arrVisitedPages, 0, 7);
                // RE-DEFINE THE $_SESSION['visitedPages'] ARRAY
                $_SESSION['visitedPages']   = $arrVisitedPages;
            }
        }

        function getLastVisitedPage(){
            $lastVisitedPage        = get_site_url() . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];       //<== FALL BACK TO THE CURRENT PAGE IF WE HAVE AN ISSUE.
            if( isset($_SESSION['visitedPages']) && is_array($_SESSION['visitedPages']) ){
                $arrVP              = $_SESSION['visitedPages'];
                $intArrVPLength     = count($arrVP);
                $diff               = ($intArrVPLength - 2);
                $lastVisitedPage    = ( $intArrVPLength > 1) ? $arrVP[$diff]  : $lastVisitedPage;
            }
            return $lastVisitedPage;
        }

    ?>

Now, Part 1 is done! Inside of your Theme, You will still find a File Called header.php This is where we have to do the logging because by default every page in Word-Press loads this Page (except when configured otherwise). At the very, very top of that File - I mean on Line 1, do this:

    <?php
        // FILE-NAME: header.php  <== LOCATED AT THE ___/wp-content/themes/your-theme-name 

        // BUILD THE URL OF THE CURRENT PAGE & PUSH IT TO THE SESSION VARIABLE...
        $thisPage                   = get_site_url() . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
        $_SESSION['visitedPages'][] = $thisPage;

       // THAT'S ALL! BELOW HERE, THE ORIGINAL CONTENT OF THE header.php FILE CONTINUES...

    ?>

One more thing! How do we now use the $_SESSION['visitedPages'] Variable? Otherwise, how do we know which page was last visited using the $_SESSION['visitedPages'] Variable?

Now on every File like (page.php, index.php, category.php, taxonomy.php, etc); you can now find out the last visited Page by doing something like this:

    <?php

        // FILE-NAME: ANY FILE IN THE THEME LIKE:  page.php, index.php, category.php, taxonomy.php, etc
        $lastVisitedPage        = getLastVisitedPage();
        // THAT'S IT, PAL...
    ?>

I hope this helps....