Redirecting using PHP

I have learned how to redirect using PHP, but I wanted to have a timer on it(like a countdown).

It redirects without a countdown in my page. I pasted a example of my code, I researched it and some links recommend to use Javascript. But I am using a Contact Me Page and I want it to use PHP.

I know it can be done.... SCRIPT IS BELOW...

<!--
JUICYboy
Edited on 2/2/11 13:35:24
-->

<!-- PHP form for contact_us.html page -->
<?php
$to = "Me@hotmail.com";
$subject = "Contact Us";
$email = $_REQUEST['email'] ;
$message = "=====Customer Inquiry=====" . "\n" ."\n" ;
$message .= "First name: " .$_POST['name'] ."\n" ;
$message .= "Phone: " .$_POST['phone'] ."\n" ;
$message .= "e-mail: " .$_POST['email'] ."\n" ;
$message .= "Regarding: " .$_POST['regarding'] ."\n";
$message .= "Message: " .$_POST['message'] . "\n" ;
$headers = "From: $email"; $sent = mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers) ;
if($sent) {print "Your mail was sent successfully"; }
else {print "We encountered an error sending your mail"; }


header( 'Location: http://www.yoursite.com/new_page.html' ) ;

?>

Edited by JUICYboy, 05 March 2011 - 10:14 PM.

I am by no means a PHP guru, but I don't think you can do a timeout in PHP alone since it's basically a server-side preprocessor. You can, however, use PHP to put some Javascript in there and it's pretty easy to do a Javascript timer.

I'm not sure what you even want to do.

Looks to me like a "Message Received" page after submitting a form.

Yes exactly

Once someone goes to my contact form and clicks "send".

The message is send threw php. How ever php does not redirect back to the previous page, unless I add the:

header( 'Location: http://www.yoursite.com/new_page.html' ) ;

The problem: When I add the syntax above it redirects so fast that the person would not know that the message has been sent.


I been busy

Why not:

if($sent) {
header( 'Location: http://www.yoursite.com/message_received.html' );
} else {
header( 'Location: http://www.yoursite.com/OMG_WTF_BBQ!.html' );
}

As Andrew has already said, JavaScript is the way to go.

send message page (php header()) -----> Thank you page (JavaScript timeout) ----------> previous page.

For those who have disabled JavaScript, give a link at bottom that says : "If you do not want to wait 5 seconds, click here to go back to previous page"

You can also use meta refresh method which works in most browsers. The usual code is like this.
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; url=/index.php">

The header(Location) method in php would not show any page and redirect immediately. Problem wih PHP in this case is that timer ticks on the server and not on the client's browser.

Edited by Romeo29, 09 March 2011 - 11:30 AM.