In web applications, it is common to have sorting options for data displayed in tables or lists. To enhance user experience, it can be helpful to persist the user’s sorting preferences so that they don’t have to re-select the sorting option every time they visit a page.

One way to achieve this is by using session storage in JavaScript. Session storage allows you to store key-value pairs that are accessible only for the duration of the user’s browsing session.

Storing User Preferences

To store the user’s sorting preference, you can use the sessionStorage object provided by the browser’s Web Storage API. Here’s an example of how you can store the user’s selected sorting option:

// Get the selected sorting option from the UI
const selectedOption = document.querySelector('#sortingSelect').value;

// Store the selected option in session storage
sessionStorage.setItem('sortingPreference', selectedOption);

In this example, we retrieve the value of the selected sorting option from the UI and store it in session storage using the setItem() method. The key 'sortingPreference' can be customized to fit your specific use case.

Retrieving User Preferences

To retrieve the user’s sorting preference when the page loads, you can use the getItem() method. If a preference was previously stored in session storage, it can be applied to the UI or used for sorting the data:

// Retrieve the previously stored sorting option from session storage
const storedPreference = sessionStorage.getItem('sortingPreference');

if (storedPreference) {
  // Apply the stored preference to the UI
  document.querySelector('#sortingSelect').value = storedPreference;

  // Perform the sorting based on the stored preference
  sortData(storedPreference);
}

In this example, we check if a preference exists in session storage using getItem(). If a preference is found, we apply it to the UI element with the id 'sortingSelect' and then perform the sorting based on the stored preference.

Clearing User Preferences

If you want to allow users to reset or clear their sorting preference, you can use the removeItem() method to remove the stored value from session storage:

// Clear the sorting preference from session storage
sessionStorage.removeItem('sortingPreference');

This code snippet removes the value associated with the key 'sortingPreference' from session storage.

Conclusion

Using session storage to persist user-specific sorting preferences in JavaScript can greatly enhance the user experience by remembering their selections across different page visits within the same session. By leveraging the Web Storage API, you can easily store, retrieve, and clear these preferences based on user interactions.

#webdevelopment #javascript