setting a specific home page for logged in users

Question

After googling, I have a piece of code to set a specific page as home page in wordpress. The code says,

add_action('init', 'loginCheck');

function loginCheck() {

    if (is_user_logged_in()) {
        $page = get_page_by_title('My Account');
    } else {
        $page = get_page_by_title('Shop');
    }

      update_option('page_on_front', $page->ID);
      update_option('show_on_front', 'page');
}

But myself have few considerations regarding above code.

1. According to me, the above code will updates the database in every page load regardless of login.
2. What will happen if two users are visiting the site simultaneously where one is logged in and other is not.
3. Is there any better ways to switch the home page based on login? ie, for logged in user can access different pages through the menu with a custom homepage whereas guest user should only access a specific page ideally a different genaralized public home page and if he/she tries to access other pages should redirect back to general home page only.

Answer 1

About your considerations:-

• Yes true! It will update the page on every visit.
• The database will be updated more frequently based on which user making a request. But there will be no incorrect output.
• The better way I suggest using a template_include filter. Assign a static front page then apply the template to that page by checking if user logged in or not. Thus you can display different layout/design to logged-in users and visitor.

See this example:-

add_filter( 'template_include', 'home_page_template', 99 );
/**
 * Home page Template based on user
 * @param type $template
 * @return type
 */
function home_page_template( $template ) {
    if (!is_front_page()) {
        return $template; //Return if not home page
    }

    $new_template = false;

    if (is_user_logged_in()) {
        $new_template = locate_template( array( 'logged-in-users.php' ) );
    } else {
        $new_template = locate_template( array( 'not-logged-in-users.php' ) );
    }

    if ( !empty($new_template) ) {
        return $new_template ; //Only return if template exist
    }

    return $template; //Always return value from filter
}

For the rest of the things you can create two menus for logged-in and guest users and call them conditionally in header file. To revoke the access to some pages/posts for guest users use init hook with is_user_logged_in() and do temporary redirect to some page. You can search this site for examples of this method.