Show content based on user selection

Im building a site at t开发者_StackOverflow中文版he moment.

On the layout there are 3 flags for different countries.

Im wondering how i would go about displaying content based on what the user selects, and keeping that selection each time they come back to the site.

Obviously the first time they come to the site the default english will be shown, but once they click on a flag it would change.

Im taking im going to have to use javascript and cookies, i have been looking around and cant seem to find any examples, im wondering if someone could show me how to go about this.

Thanks

Cookies seems like the right idea:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=javascript+cookies

There are (probably) only two ways of doing this:

1. Cookies (i.e. mostly anonymous users)
2. Registration and getting users to login

For your needs, it sounds as though cookies would be enough.

http://www.quirksmode.org/js/cookies.html is absolutely worth reading from beginning to end.

I am giving a abstract idea of how i might do it.. In the html you write, put a javascript function which sets the flag's id in the browser cookie when you click the flag and then submit the request..

function setCookie(flag_id) //call this when the flag is clicked
{
    var allcookies = document.cookie;
    if(allcookies)
    {
            document.cookie += ';flagId=' + flag_id;
    }
    else
    {
        document.cookie='flagId=' + flag_id;
    }
 /*submit the form or whatever you would like to do when the flag is clicked*/
}

Thats it on the client part. You can specify the expiration time for the cookie as well.. for details you can refer the w3schools website. The cookie will stay in the browser and sent to the server on every request.

Now, on the server side, if you are using servlets, just use the following code to get the cookie in the doPost or doGet (in your case when the first request comes from the client).

.....
Cookies[] cookies = request.getCookies();
String flagId = null;
if(cookies != null)
{
    for(String cookie:cookies)
    {
        if(cookie.getName().equals("flagId"))
            {
            flagId = cookie.getValue();
        }
    }
}
//use the flag id to decide your content here..
....

Hope this answers your question.