Are Cookies Required for an Ecommerce Site

[jqcf]

Is there anything that you can do to make your ecommerce site work if a user decides to block them with his browser?

[Newsgroup_User]

Pass all the required data through get (URL) or post (FORM) requests.
ColdFusion has the ability to pass the session required CFID & CFTOKEN
cookie values though the URL so that cookies are not required. Then all
the other state data can be stored in the session scope.

This does require quite a bit of effort to make sure that every link,
form post, any other request, passes these values. It also opens a
whole world of session sharing issues as URL's with these values can
easily be bookmarked, e-mailed, otherwise shared. You will need logic
that minimizes this risk.

It can be done. However most developers just choose to clearly require
cookies in the user information of the site. A simple test to see if
cookies are disabled can provide feedback to users who may not be aware
of the issues.

HTH

[Guest]

pass the cfid/cftoken (or jsessionid) in the URL for each page request.

[jqcf]

How do you perform a test to see if the user has disabled cookies with their browser settings? Something like this in application.cfc?

<cffunction name="onSessionStart" output="true" returntype="void">

<cfcookie name="test" value="" expires="7">
<cfif IsDefined(Cookie.test)>
<cfif Cookie.test eq "userBrowserAllowsCookies">
<cfset session.cookiesAllowed = 'yes'>
<cfelse>
<!--- Rejects Cookies--->
<cfset session.cookiesAllowed = 'no'>
</cfif>
<cfelse>
<cfset session.cookiesAllowed = 'no'>
</cfif>

</cffunction>

[Newsgroup_User]

Something like that. Just realize it takes two request to complete the
test. The first request you attempt to set the cookie. On the next
request you attempt to read it. If it does not exist, the user is not
allowing cookies.

Do this the first time the user access the site and you are golden.

Just remember that if there are no cookies there is no session scope,
unless you pass cfid and cftoken values in the URL. ColdFusion must
have these values, usually stored in cookies, to know what requests
belong to what session data.

[jqcf]

So, I'd need to add html code like this to every href link?
<cfif not IsDefined(Cookie.test)>
<cfoutput>
<a href =" /link.cfm?session.cfid=#cfid#&session.token=#cftoken#">shopping cart test</a>
</cfoutput>
</cfif>
Or, is it more complicated than that?
Can anyone point me to a tutorial for this?

[Newsgroup_User]

There are functions that can help you manage your session state through
the URL.

The 'Using Persistent Data and Locking' section of 'ColdFusion
Developer's Guide' in the ColdFusion documentation discuss the ins and
outs of Session state management and doing so without cookies. After
this you should be able to find blogs and discussions that tweak out the
finer details.

[jqcf]

Is it as simple as something like this around all your links?

<a href="<cfoutput>#urlSessionFormat('link.cfm')#</cfoutput>">this link keeps the session info if a user has blocked cookies on your site </a>