paulsimonrough

Thanks for your reply your the first person in 2 weeks who has been able to provide some insight to this, I’m a Joomla Dev translating my extensions over to WordPress and I’m struggling a bit with the API.

I have updated my code to show more of what I’m trying to do:

<?php 

## Set a test variable outside the class
$variabletest1 = '78';
echo $variabletest1;

class my_class extends WP_Widget {

## get variable from the backend form settings of widget, the user sets 2 numbers from which I will create a random number, default 3 and 5
      function form($instance) {
      global $instance;
      $title = ! empty( $instance['variableiwant1'] ) ? $instance['title'] : __( '3' );
 $title = ! empty( $instance['variableiwant2'] ) ? $instance['title'] : __( '5' );
        }

        ##update save of widget
        function update($new_instance, $old_instance) {
            $instance = $old_instance;
            $instance['variableiwant1'] = strip_tags($new_instance[ 'variableiwant']);
 $instance['variableiwant2'] = strip_tags($new_instance[ 'variableiwant']);
            return $instance;
        }

##I want to create a random number from the 2 variables set in the backend by the user, this works as expected.

        function widget($args, $instance) {

$variabletest2 = rand(intval($instance['variableiwant1']), intval($instance['variableiwant2']));

echo $variabletest1; ## echos 78 (this was set outside the class)
echo $variabletest2; ## echos the random number
        }

 ##here I try and set the cookie from the random number generated before headers are sent.

function set_newuser_cookie() {
  global $instance;
  global $variableiwant;
  global $variabletest1;
  global $variabletest2;

## variabletest2 should hold the random number generated.
echo $variabletest1; ## echos 78
echo $variabletest2; ## echos NULL

if (isset($_COOKIE["variablesave"]))
              ;
          else
          {
            setcookie("variablesave", $variabletest2, time()+3600);
        }
}

## I have tried other hooks like 'init' but it seems that the cookie is always set BEFORE the random variable is set.

add_action( 'send_headers', 'set_newuser_cookie');

I’m just trying to get my head around this. In Joomla, backend setting can be assigned to variable and are available always, you could set one as a cookie directly I’m a little lost with the way WordPress executes things and in which order.

Basically all I need is:

1 A user to sets 2 numbers in the back end of the widget.
2 A random number is created between these 2 numbers.
3 The random number is stored as a cookie on page load.

Thanks, Paul.