Posted by Neredbojias on 09/05/05 13:57

With neither quill nor qualm, Jukka K. Korpela quothed:

> Neredbojias <neredbojias@neredbojias.com> wrote:
>
> > - - the OP did not explicitly state that the
> > "next person" had to be a different person.
>
> Reading the original question again, I notice that the OP _first_ told he
> wants the page show "alternately as a person accesses that page", then
> something completely different, namely that the page should alternate _by
> person_.
>
> Either way, the answer is still "no".
>
> > Using the "session-
> > variable" strategy of attaching a search string to the url and relying
> > on the history of the back button to recognize it (which, of course, it
> > does,) the tactic is, to a degree, possible.
>
> No it isn't. If persons A and B successively access the page on their
> browsers, or if person A successively accesses the page on two browsers,
> there will be no session variables. So this fails for either interpretation
> of the "problem".

Yes, true, very true. What I would do is make a large list of messages,
say greetings in different languages, and use the random function or
possibly the date() function to select one when the page loads. The
larger the list, the less likely the same message would appear in
succession. Of course, this is not *guaranteed* the way it could be
during one session and there is a possibility a visitor would see the
same message again in a repeat albeit discrete visit.

However, as an extreme example, one could use cookies in the manner that
some bank sites employ them. If the visitor has cookies (or javascript)
disabled, he is denied access to the main part of the site and the
waiting message unless and until he activates them in his browser.
Otherwise, voila! - a new message every time (-based, of course, upon a
representation within the cookie of the previous message.)

So it *is* possible.

>
> >> The conditions will not be fulfilled in the sublunar world, however.
> >> Especially the part "nobody ever lets anyone else..." fails.
> >
> > Html itself is not ideally "faultless", and css, in my humble opinion,
> > is based on a very flawed model, but nevertheless, those are the tools
> > with which we have to work,
>
> The defects of HTML and CSS have nothing to do with this. Neither of them
> was meant to address wishes like this, and there isn't even anything you
> could try in HTML or CSS to solve the, er, "problem".

No, not specifically with this which seems to beg for a script solution.
But then the css "hover" was a big (and not unpleasant) surprise when I
first encountered it. So if "hover," why not "alternate?" -Okay, it's
a stretch, but perhaps the dividing line between active and non-active
presentation is not so sharp as it once was.
>
> (As usual, the real problem behind the non-problem is probably more
> interesting than has been told so far.)

In trying to find what I hope won't be a "non-solution", I often sense
myself attempting to extrapolate what it is that the poster is really
wishing to do. If more details were proffered, better solutions could
certainly be devised.

--
Neredbojias
Contrary to popular belief, it is believable.

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