Feature Proposal: Add counter to session variables

Motivation

Sometimes it is desirable to take some action on the very first page view after a login, such as to show a help dialog box. This is possible if we add a counter to the session variables where we can query how many pages have been viewed with the current session after login.

Description and Documentation

Add a SESSION_REQUEST_NUMBER session variable that can be queried using %SESSIONVARIABLE{SESSION_REQUEST_NUMBER}%. On first page view after login it is set to 1, next page view is 2, etc.

Examples

Impact

Implementation

--- lib/TWiki/LoginManager.pm.save1   2010-10-11 06:15:40.000000000 +0000
+++ lib/TWiki/LoginManager.pm   2011-03-31 19:32:39.000000000 +0000
@@ -512,6 +512,7 @@
                   undef, $twiki->{request},
                   { Directory => "$TWiki::cfg{WorkingDir}/tmp" } );
             die TWiki::LoginManager::Session->errstr() unless $this->{_cgisession};
+            $this->{_cgisession}->param( 'SESSION_REQUEST_NUMBER', 0 );
         }
     }
     if( $authUser && $authUser ne $TWiki::cfg{DefaultUserLogin} ) {
@@ -527,13 +528,17 @@
             # TODO: these are bare login's, so if and when there are multiple usermappings, 
             # this would need to include cUID..     
             $this->{_cgisession}->param( 'AUTHUSER', $authUser );
+            my $num = ( $this->{_cgisession}->param( 'SESSION_REQUEST_NUMBER' ) || 0 ) + 1;
+            $this->{_cgisession}->param( 'SESSION_REQUEST_NUMBER', $num );
         }
         $twiki->enterContext( 'authenticated' );
     } else {
         _trace( $this, "Session is NOT authenticated" );
         # if we are not authenticated, expire any existing session
-        $this->{_cgisession}->clear( [ 'AUTHUSER' ] )
-          if( $TWiki::cfg{UseClientSessions} );
+        if( $TWiki::cfg{UseClientSessions} ) {
+            $this->{_cgisession}->clear( [ 'AUTHUSER' ] );
+            $this->{_cgisession}->param( 'SESSION_REQUEST_NUMBER', 0 );
+        }
         $twiki->leaveContext( 'authenticated' );
     }
     if( $TWiki::cfg{UseClientSessions} ) {

-- Contributors: PeterThoeny - 2011-03-31

Discussion

This is now accepted by 7 days feedback period.

-- PeterThoeny - 2011-04-08

This is now implemented in SVN trunk and documented.

-- PeterThoeny - 2011-04-09