display message then redirect

[dadamssg]

i've seen this done on several sites. After, you complete a form or do somehing it takes to you to a page that temporarily displays a message and then redirects you to another page. How do you do this? after submitting the information from a form i want to display a message like "You're information is in review" or a "Please check your email for a confirmation link"...something like that and then after a certain amount of seconds, redirect to the homepage. any help would be great!

[jxrd]

You can use javascript or meta refresh.

[Grayda]

There are three ways to achieve what you're after:

 

Number one (anywhere in your script, preferably at the bottom so the page has time to load):

<script language='javascript'>setTimeout('window.location="gohere.html"', 5000);</script>

Pros:

• Quick and easy
  
• Doesn't break W3C standards
  
• Works well with back buttons
  

Cons:

• Doesn't work in Javascript is turned off
  

 

Number two (put this between your header tags):

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;url=gohere.html" />

Pros:

• Doesn't require Javascript
  

Cons:

• Can prevent people from using the back button if redirected too quickly
  
• Discouraged by the W3C. Instead they encourage you to use 30x status code
  

 

Number three (place BEFORE your PHP script outputs anything, since we're messing with headers):

<?php
Header( "HTTP/1.1 303 See Other" ); 
Header( "Location: gohere.html" ); 
?>

• 
   
  Pros:
  
  • All browsers can understand this
    
  • Encouraged by the W3C
    

 

Cons:

• Should only be used for updating URLs. (eg. redirect from newsite.example.com to example.com when newsite goes live)
  
• Requires you use output buffering unless no content comes before the header change
  

 

In essence, pick your poison. All three work well depending on your situation