[RESOLVED] whos online

[lucilue2003]

Can someone get me started on this..

Can you guys tell me how forums such as these have the utility that shows you who's online?

Thanks.

[Azala]

Use a table in your database to insert the ID's of the ones who logged in together with a timestamp.

Whenever a page is loaded, run a script that deletes the entries that are older than say 15 minutes and check that the current logged in user is in that table.

That way anyone who's been inactive for the last 15 minutes will be displayed as offline, and as soon as they click a page somewhere they will re-active since the script will insert them again if they were deleted, assuming they are still logged in.

Obviously there are many approaches to doing this, but by using only php it won't be real-time.

[Atomiku]

If this has solved your problem please mark your thread resolved, Thankyou 🙂

[lucilue2003]

So what comes close to real time ?

[leatherback]

You could probably have some javascript that communicates constantly with your server. The question is: Do you want this;
- Dataload/connection wise
- cross-browser-wise

[lucilue2003]

I'm not quite understanding what you mean by javascipt vs. db.. can you please give me an example so that i can better understand you.

i UNDERSTAND better through examples

thanks.

[leatherback]

The database needs to be updated, in order to know whether people are online. The server only knows whether you are still active through page-loads.

User loads page

doesn't do anything for 15 minutes
Server calls him not active

Instead with javascript:
User loads page

Javascript maintains contact with server
Server knows whether user is there.

However, this requires a lot of communication (BAsically, the page is constatntly loading), and is less reliable.

[lucilue2003]

Thank you.