How would you suggest this?

AndrewWest

Ok - I am writing a forum software. I have everything done for a "just above normal" discussion board. Forums, Post, Replies, Control Panel, Registration.. all that good junk.

Anyways...

I would like to make a notifier to work in my sessions.

If a post was made since a users last login time then the forum icon would be lit up..

Just like here on the vB system.

I'm just looking for opinions on this.

luke9_20

When you have your users log in, store a timestamp in your database under that user - if you dont already. Then when each post is made, also set a timestamp for that post. Then whenever the user logs in, you can compare the timestamp to the timestamp of the last post made, and if its greater, make the image lit, if it's less, then it's not lit.

AndrewWest

Alright,

I figured this would be the suggest way. If say

if($time_last_post_in_thread > $time_user_logged_in) {
$image = "<img src='litup.gif'>";
} else {
$image = "<img src='dead.gif'>";
}

Also, I could do this for the forum total then right?

if($time_user_logged_in < $time_last_post_in_forum) {
$image = "<img src='litup.gif'>";
} else {
$image = "<img src='dead.gif'>";
}

Now here's the big bang, what if a post is made while the user is using the board? Shouldn't I have a thing in my global.php that basically updates the database everytime the page is refreshed (last active time?)

luke9_20

Well, if you do a query at the top of every page that checks the database when the page is loaded, then you don't need to worry about that. Every time a user makes a post, the database IS updated so the last time a user made a post would be updated then.