Can Somebody rewrite my cookie script below to be simplier, so that
instead of me having to name all my objects image#.jpg i can simply
leave them with full length names and set the theme with the full
image name on the address line... example, currently:
index.php?setTheme=1  want:
index.php?setTheme=thenameof-image-whatever-it-may-be.gif

as an alternate i would be ok if i had to put a number before each
image, and still used the address line as setTheme=1 so long as i
could define completly different names with each image.

current script: 
<?php 
 
if (!empty($settheme)) { 
 $theme = $settheme; 
 setTheme(); 
} elseif (!empty($_COOKIE['theme'])) { 
 $theme = $_COOKIE['theme']; 
} elseif (!empty($killcookie)) { 
 killCookie(); 
} 
 
 
function setTheme() { 
 global $theme; 
 setcookie('theme',$theme,time()+2678500,'/','thesmartass.info'); 
} 
 
function getTheme() { 
 global $theme; 
  
 $default_theme = "random.php?pic=random1"; 
 
 $image_dir = "./images/artwork/"; // trailing slash is important. 
 $image_path = "images/artwork/"; // here too. 
 $image_prefix = "image"; 
 $image_suffix = ".jpg";
  
 if (!empty($theme)) { 
  $imagefile = $image_prefix.$theme.$image_suffix; 
  if (!file_exists($image_dir.$imagefile)) { 
   $imagefile = $default_theme; 
  } 
 } else { 
  $imagefile = $default_theme; 
 } 
  
 return $image_path.$imagefile; 
} 
 
function killCookie() { 
 setcookie('theme','',time()-2678500); 
} 

?>

Here you go. I also fixed up some security bugs, and made code more portable.

//allowed themes, for security purposes
$allowedThemes = array(
	'1.jpg',
	'whatever.gif'
);

//remove cookie function
function killThemeCokie() {
	setcookie('theme', '', time()-36000, '/' ,'thesmartass.info');
	header('Location: '.$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
	die();
}
//set cookie functiom
function setThemeCookie($name) {
	setcookie('theme', $name, time()+2678500, '/', 'thesmartass.info'); 
	header('Location: '.$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
	die();
} 

//do anything?
if ( !empty($_GET['killcookie']) )  {
	killCookie();
} elseif ( !empty($_GET['settheme']) && in_array($_GET['settheme',
$allowedThemes) ) {
	setThemeCookie($_GET['settheme']);
}

//what theme to use?
if ( !empty($_COOKIE['theme']) && in_array($_COOKIE['theme'],
$allowedThemes) && file_exists('./images/artwork/'.$_COOKIE['theme'])
) {
	$theme = 'images/artwork/'.$_COOKIE['theme']; //cokie
} else {
	$theme = 'random.php?pic=random1'; //default
}


Note that you need to udpate $allowedThemes with a list of all allowed
themes for purposes of security.

It doesn't work... 
1) what is the call function 
before it was getTheme();
you eliminated that function 

2) there are errors on the script that keep it from even masking the
code on a website... i set it up as an include on this page:
http://www.thesmartass.info/delete.php 
see for yourself, then go http://www.thesmartass.info/ to get the idea
of what i want it to ultimately do, i will need to make 2 different
cookie scripts to set 2 different images as backgrounds for the
website, they are currently both set to random