RFC Live View

[Scotster]

Hi there,

I've been a member of a vBulletin forum for many years and noticed a really nice feature that it has. I'm not sure if it's a mod, or whether it's standard but the page is "Spy.php".

It's a fantastic feature on boards with lots of ever changing content where users like to get involved. I would regularly just sit and watch the Forum Spy page, where I would get a brief glimpse of the forum updates live. Unfortunately, on that particular forum, it's members only but I have found another example of what it looks like that's quite similar.

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/spy/

The above is XenForo Spy but it's remarkably similar to the vBulletin feature/mod.

As you can see from the above the "Event" is listed along with any relevant user/location info and the topic with a snip of the post content. As I said, this is VERY handy if the board is really busy, you can just sit back with the live view running and keep an eye out for anything that you find interesting. Also very handy from a moderation standpoint.

I'd love to have something similar on my forum.

[tbackoff]

-1

I would imaging this would eat up every resource allocated to users on shared hosting. Also, it can get pretty annoying on large boards (like the one you linked to ).

[Mess]

Wow, thats really cool. +1 from me.

[tbackoff]

Wow, thats really cool

Cool != necessary. Did you happen to miss my point about running up shared hosting resources? Imagine the support requests.

"My hosting account got disabled and they told me it was because phpBB was using too many resources! I have no other software installed, no MODs, and using the default style!". What do you expect us to say then? "I'm sorry, phpBB is no longer suitable for shared hosting as it has implemented a spy feature. You will need to upgrade to dedicated hosting for ditch our software for a competitor."?

Better to keep this as an extension.

[Jessica.]

-1 Not needed

Wow, thats really cool

Cool != necessary. Did you happen to miss my point about running up shared hosting resources? Imagine the support requests.

"My hosting account got disabled and they told me it was because phpBB was using too many resources! I have no other software installed, no MODs, and using the default style!". What do you expect us to say then? "I'm sorry, phpBB is no longer suitable for shared hosting as it has implemented a spy feature. You will need to upgrade to dedicated hosting for ditch our software for a competitor."?

Better to keep this as an extension.

+1 to this. It's better as an extension

[Scotster]

I may be completely wrong but I believe it uses an RSS feed (or perhaps atom), thus lowering the resources required considerably.

Surely with regards to what's needed it's only really bug fixes that should apply? IMO it's needed to keep up with the other forum highlights that are out there.

I would be very happy with it being available as an extension though, it's one that I would certainly apply.

Oh, something that I forgot to mention. You need to allow the page I linked to load first. Just in case you are basing your opinion of it being annoying on how fast it appears to be updating. Like an RSS feed it pulls in the last xx events but the person who wrote it made it animated. Once it has loaded the previous events it's fairly calm with a post appearing every 30 seconds - a minute. Much like a busy RSS feed would.

[MichaelC]

I may be completely wrong but I believe it uses an RSS feed (or perhaps atom), thus lowering the resources required considerably.

Surely with regards to what's needed it's only really bug fixes that should apply? IMO it's needed to keep up with the other forum highlights that are out there.

I would be very happy with it being available as an extension though, it's one that I would certainly apply.

Oh, something that I forgot to mention. You need to allow the page I linked to load first. Just in case you are basing your opinion of it being annoying on how fast it appears to be updating. Like an RSS feed it pulls in the last xx events but the person who wrote it made it animated. Once it has loaded the previous events it's fairly calm with a post appearing every 30 seconds - a minute. Much like a busy RSS feed would.

Actually, the problem would be the AJAX requests sent from the user's computer to the server requesting any more 'updates' every x seconds (On DP it seems to be every second).

-1 for that reason.

[EXreaction]

The page linked to is actually very misleading, the items it shows at first at least are not real time, they are actually much older, you have to wait for the first twenty or so items to get through before it becomes close to real-time (it checks every 5 seconds or so after that).

[Mess]

Wow, thats really cool

Cool != necessary. Did you happen to miss my point about running up shared hosting resources?

No, I did not miss your post. I just disagree. I don't have this limitation on my server and like the idea.
We can still get a long, without having to be condescending to each other.

[tbackoff]

Not condescending - at least I didn't think so. Sorry if you took it that way.

/me hugs!