No back button

Okay, I'm really stumped on this one. I need a way to prevent a user from
using their back button to access pages in a series. Basically someway to
check to make sure they didnt use the back button to reach a specific page.
I've figured out a way to keep the users from skipping to and fro from
pages, so maybe all I need is a way to determine what page they came from,
since the pages are in a predictible cycle. Is there anyway to detect this?
I know my explination is a little vague, but to get into specifics, but it
would take a long to describe everything. Thanks in advance.

> Okay, I'm really stumped on this one. I need a way to prevent a user
from
> using their back button to access pages in a series. Basically
someway to
> check to make sure they didnt use the back button to reach a
specific page.
> I've figured out a way to keep the users from skipping to and fro
from
> pages, so maybe all I need is a way to determine what page they came
from,
> since the pages are in a predictible cycle. Is there anyway to
detect this?
> I know my explination is a little vague, but to get into specifics,
but it
> would take a long to describe everything. Thanks in advance.

I'm not sure about what you want, maybe you can check the referrer and
if it isn't the logical previous page then redirect to the next ?
But if the browser uses its cache to display the page, php won't help
you anyway.

_______________________________
SeeSchloss — GPU.sf.net / Nye.free.fr

"Lee Marsh" <burgermeister01@insightbb.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:EEi1b.168468$cF.59104@rwcrnsc53...
> Okay, I'm really stumped on this one. I need a way to prevent a user from
> using their back button to access pages in a series. Basically someway to
> check to make sure they didnt use the back button to reach a specific
page.
> I've figured out a way to keep the users from skipping to and fro from
> pages, so maybe all I need is a way to determine what page they came from,
> since the pages are in a predictible cycle. Is there anyway to detect
this?
> I know my explination is a little vague, but to get into specifics, but it
> would take a long to describe everything. Thanks in advance.
>
As the back button is controlled by the browser software and not by the
webpage it might be best to write "Don't use the back button" on your page.

--
Markus

"Lee Marsh" <burgermeister01@insightbb.com> wrote in
news:EEi1b.168468$cF.59104@rwcrnsc53:

> Okay, I'm really stumped on this one. I need a way to prevent a user
> from using their back button to access pages in a series. Basically
> someway to check to make sure they didnt use the back button to reach
> a specific page. I've figured out a way to keep the users from
> skipping to and fro from pages, so maybe all I need is a way to
> determine what page they came from, since the pages are in a
> predictible cycle. Is there anyway to detect this? I know my
> explination is a little vague, but to get into specifics, but it would
> take a long to describe everything. Thanks in advance.

There's no way to prevent the browser from using the back button. Use a
Session cookie to track what page they're on, and what page is next.

--
Larry Flynt for Governor
Bringing dignity back to the Governor's Mansion

Terry Austin
taustin@hyperbooks.com

That's kind of what I'm doing right now, that's how I prevented users from
skipping pages. Anyways, I think I might be able to actually pull it off, if
I knew some function or something that told me what the last page the user
was at. Isn't there some way to detect that? On a page counter service I
used to use, they told you where your visitors were referred from, so I know
there must be some way.

Anyways, it may all be a moot point, since my ISP found out I was running a
server off my computer. They threatened to pull the plug on me if I didn't
shut down, so until I can get a web host that supports PHP, no more
programming for me = [

"Lee Marsh" <burgermeister01@insightbb.com> wrote in
news:jkw1b.174906$Oz4.45500@rwcrnsc54:

> That's kind of what I'm doing right now, that's how I prevented users
> from skipping pages. Anyways, I think I might be able to actually pull
> it off, if I knew some function or something that told me what the
> last page the user was at. Isn't there some way to detect that? On a
> page counter service I used to use, they told you where your visitors
> were referred from, so I know there must be some way.

The Referrer header is not reliable. It is controlled by the browser. If
you're already using PHP to keep people from skipping, it should be easy to
keep them from going back. Learn about Sessions. They're basically short
term cookies. Set a Session cookie to the last page they viewed, and when
the next page is accessed, read that cookie and it tells you what the last
page was.
>
> Anyways, it may all be a moot point, since my ISP found out I was
> running a server off my computer. They threatened to pull the plug on
> me if I didn't shut down, so until I can get a web host that supports
> PHP, no more programming for me = [

The joys of consumer broadband.

--
Larry Flynt for Governor
Bringing dignity back to the Governor's Mansion

Terry Austin
taustin@hyperbooks.com

"Lee Marsh" <burgermeister01@insightbb.com> wrote in message
news:EEi1b.168468$cF.59104@rwcrnsc53...
> Okay, I'm really stumped on this one. I need a way to prevent a user from
> using their back button to access pages in a series. Basically someway to
> check to make sure they didnt use the back button to reach a specific
page.
> I've figured out a way to keep the users from skipping to and fro from
> pages, so maybe all I need is a way to determine what page they came from,
> since the pages are in a predictible cycle. Is there anyway to detect
this?
> I know my explination is a little vague, but to get into specifics, but it
> would take a long to describe everything. Thanks in advance.
>
>

You can use the header() function to set the page expire at a short time
(www.web-caching.com has more info on http headers that get sent to the
browser )

this way if the person clicks the back button they get "the page you have
requested has expired.
that should stop it

example code
header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT");
header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Pragma: no-cache");

Hmm, okay, I said screw my ISP and ran my server again just long enough to
see how well this works, becuase I like this idea. It's resourceful and it
doesn't require me to register any more variables with the session, but
there's one problem: I can't seem to get it to work right, and I have no
idea why. I put all the header commands in an include file and put it at the
very beginning of every page I wanted to protect in this manner. Here is the
contents of this file:
<?php

header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT");
header("Last-Modified: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s") . " GMT");

header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate");
header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0, false");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
?>

What might be wrong with this picture?