One Time Link Via Email

[Elemental]

Hey Folks, Question:What would be the best or most practical way of providing a "One Time link via email" to the customer after payment transaction, through Paypal, has been completed or received?This link would only be available from the email and for a limited time only. So if the customer decides to click on the link again, say after using it once, or after a certain time has elapsed the link would no longer be active and the customer would be sent to another page explaining that either the link was already used or time has elapsed?Peace,Elemental

[pizzaguy]

I would assume that you would want to generate the variable to identify each transaction, then you would add that variable to a database. When the link with the variable in it is clicked, the script would check the database and if the variable is in the database it will confirm it, and remove that from the database (unless it needs to remain for reference, in which case a new field would be added to specify that the link has been used). This might not be the most secure method, but i cant think of anything else.

[Elemental]

I would assume that you would want to generate the variable to identify each transaction, then you would add that variable to a database. When the link with the variable in it is clicked, the script would check the database and if the variable is in the database it will confirm it, and remove that from the database (unless it needs to remain for reference, in which case a new field would be added to specify that the link has been used). This might not be the most secure method, but i cant think of anything else.

Pizzaguy, Thanks for the reply, and I guess; Yes, that would be a good assumption, but since I don't really know what is required to do what he needs to do..., I'm still just (X)HTML and CSS ....He created the site using Joomla and has setup PayPal for payments. I know of Joomla but I'm not familiar with how it works. PayPal, I know has a return link option but this will only take you to one page and then it would still have to be setup so that it can be visited only once, even if he creates multiple PayPal accounts for each documentary video he has he still needs to secure the one time download issue.You mention using a database; can you elaborate on this a bit more?Peace,Elemental

[pizzaguy]

Well im not good enough to give you any real code, but this would require some sort of server side scripting like PHP and the database would be done with MySQL (http://w3schools.com/php/php_mysql_intro.asp) or another SQL service (http://w3schools.com/sql/default.asp). you would then want to create a table with things like: an identifying variable, the product purchased (if there is more than one option), and a variable to show that the link has been used or not.