A pretty simple and useful plugin, Page Template Dashboard lets see you what templates your…
For my European readers out there, you may have heard of the new EU regulation that stipulates that you must get your users consent before a cookie can be downloaded. UK Cookie Consent helps keep your site compliant with the new directive, with very little to set up.
What’s It Do?
UK Cookie Consent places a customizable notification bar on your site which alerts users to the fact that there are cookies being used on your site. The bar can be placed on either the top or the bottom of the site, and won’t go away until the user clicks the “Ok” button or optionally chooses to get more info. The bar uses fixed positioning, so it will follow a user, even if they scroll down a page.
This will ensure that EU readers are properly informed of what is being downloaded to their site, and you can change the language of the message to anything you wish. The plugin works by installing a cookie on the user’s machine after permission is given, which is automatically set for 30 days.
UK Cookie Notice also automatically creates a very simple page on your site titled “Cookie Policy” filled in with information about what a cookie is and how to disable it if they want. This is where the more info button links to. You can change the language of this just as you would any other page, though the standard boilerplate is very thorough.
How’s It Work?
When you install and activate the plugin, it will start working immediately. But if you go to Settings -> Cookie Consent you will see some options to tweak the look and content of the notification bar.
First, you can change the text of the notification itself, and of the Consent and More Info button to whatever you like. The default is fairly informal, telling users “This site uses cookies” with a “No Problem” button so you may have to change this to fit the needs of your client or site.
Next, is the permalink of the cookie policy page for the More Info link. This will be automatically filled in with the permalink “cookie-policy” which points to the page created by the plugin. At the bottom of the Settings page, you will see a link to this page, which has some general language informing users about cookies. In order for this page to work properly, pretty permalinks should be enabled.
If you’d like to edit this page, simply go to Pages -> Cookie Policy and change the content of the page to whatever you would like.
Text and style options for UK Cookie Consent
There are also several options to change the look of the notification bar. You can choose what the color of the bar’s background should be, the color of the text, and the color of both buttons. Each option has a color picker next to it, so you can choose or type in any color you want so it fits your theme’s style better or calls it out more.
The last option is a drop-down menu labeled “Notification position.” You can choose to either stick the notification bar to the top or bottom. In both cases, the position will be fixed, so it will follow the user even as they scroll.
A fixed bar at the top or bottom of your page
And that’s it, everything will be set up. Once a user indicates that they are okay with cookie’s, the bar will be removed for 30 days, or until that user clears cookies from their browser. If they are not okay with it, they will have information on how to remove cookie’s all together, and you will have done your part to keep up with EU compliance.
Cost, Caveats, Etc.
Cookie Notice adds just a few lines of Javascript to insert the cookie and adds a few lines of CSS to set the position and style of the notification bar. The CSS is added to the of the page, which I don’t love, as I would prefer it to be in an external stylesheet, but it is not all that much. And even so, the impact on performance is very low as everything is kept lightweight.
If you are having a problem with the plugin, the support forum is the best place to find help.
I can’t pretend to know everything about the new EU directive regarding cookie’s so if someone spots an error with compliance, or think more needs to be done please let me know so I can look into it.
