[RESOLVED] Static page Dynamic content

Vicarious

What I have is a mysql table which is updated by a php form page, this is working as expected. What I am trying to set up an alternate page which will be view only on remote terminals around the shop that updates as the table is updated.

Is there any technology out there I can look into that can do this outside of some kind of refresh timer? I have set up a few ajax functions in some of my other pages but I dont think that is going to help (at least I havnt yet been able to make it work) as I believe the request needs to come from the page being updated with the ajax request. Or perhaps some way to send some info from the form page to the display page that tells it to update the info?

Basically what is happening here is we have a station set up where each employee scans into a job when they start working on said job which inserts the relevant info into the mysql table. We have a few remote monitors around the shop that we want to use to display a list of jobs that are currently being worked on and countdown of the man hours spent on each particular job. These remote monitors however will have no real interaction, only purpose is to display info. So if 3 people are working on "JOB313" and one of them scans into "JOB296" then that info could be updated on the display page.

jQuery Countdown is what I am just now starting to look into to do the countdown timers (if theres a better option please point me in that direction) I still need to figure out how to get this "display" page to update when the data changes.

I know this is long and I do apologize for that and thank you for taking the time to read it and potentially point me in the right direction. I am not looking for someone to do the work for me I just need to know where to start researching.

Thanks much.

sneakyimp

I'm not familiar with JQuery Countdown, but a brief glance at that page you linked suggests that it is just a countdown timer and nothing more -- i.e., it doesn't actually query a server or anything.

What you need to do is probably use Javascript to run on the remote monitors that polls the server every N seconds and requests some page that returns the new value. Your javascript, once it receives a response from the server, would take care to update the HTML on display with the new value.

Vicarious

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, the more I contemplate this, it seems I will need something on the viewer page that will run at a set interval to get the updated data. Unless there is some way I can add some type of script or something to the form page that updates or tells the view page to update. This seems to be the most practical method as the data only changes through this form page, is this even feasible?

sneakyimp

Having the server push updates to remote machines requires a socket connection and is considerably more complex than having the remote machines poll the server. Polling is very commonly done and much easier with HTTP and browsers. If you want push notifications, you are going to have to keep the socket connection open between server and client and this will require more complex software.

Vicarious

Yeah, I am quickly discovering that is not really something I even need to be able to do. Due to the fact that both of these pages (form page and view page) will be displayed from one client with a multiple monitor set-up, I guess "remote" was not really a good word to use because even tho the actual monitors are in "remote" locations relative to the workstation displaying them they are all still receiving their signal from the same workstation.

With that in mind I am now looking into the window.open method to keep the view page updated when the form is submitted. If I am looking in the wrong direction or there may be a better solution I would love to hear it.

Thanks again for the help.

Vicarious

Ok, so I ended up using a Javascript to run at a set interval that compares the currently displayed data with the actual mysql table data and updates if necessary as suggested by sneakyimp.

Thanks much.

sneakyimp

I think you did the right thing. You could have gone through the trouble of setting up some elaborate Javascript in your entry form to update values in other windows or something but it would be less reliable I think and provide no advantage at all worth having.