Check if customer is logged in

Is there a foolproof way of checking whether a customer is logged in? I had hoped $_SESSION['customer_id'] would do the job, but when checking out with COWOA this variable is set once the customer has entered the billing address.

Background: I've made a row of custom buttons to be displayed at all times. Which buttons should show depends on whether a customer is logged in, and it's not so good that a COWOA customer would appear as having an account and being logged in as soon as they've gone through the first step of supposedly account-less checkout.

flyvholm:

Is there a foolproof way of checking whether a customer is logged in? I had hoped $_SESSION['customer_id'] would do the job, but when checking out with COWOA this variable is set once the customer has entered the billing address.

Background: I've made a row of custom buttons to be displayed at all times. Which buttons should show depends on whether a customer is logged in, and it's not so good that a COWOA customer would appear as having an account and being logged in as soon as they've gone through the first step of supposedly account-less checkout.

if your using the current version of COWOA then you would do the same as what's required for login...

<?php if ($_SESSION['customer_id'] && (!$_SESSION['COWOA']=='True')) { ?>  
A customer is logged on button code here...
<?php } else {  ?>
not a customer button code here...
<?php } ?>

Dave,

Thanks a lot for your prompt and accurate reply. So far that appears to work exactly the way I had hoped. I should have been able to figure that out for myself, but at least now the answer can be found here and may perhaps save somebody else some time.