Miscellaneous Hacks - Live Topic

. . . . . . . . Brought to you by scriptasy.com

. . . http://www.Scriptasy.com

Live Demo:

Live Topic 1.07b Demo (you must be logged in, and the topic must be "live")

Videos: 1.00b 1.06b

watch the damn videos... ^_^

Description:

This product is different from anything you have seen before, it raises the bar for forums. It will make your forums much more interactive, and also reduce server load.

Technical Details:

If a thread has been posted in X seconds then its now Live, if other users are viewing the Live topic and are on the last page they will experience a clean ajax experience while talking to other members. Once the thread is older than X seconds its no longer Live and it will now act like a normal thread. Also if a user edits one of their posts that's inside of the thread, it will be updated too so there is no longer a reason to ever have to refresh.

There is also logic for the viewer, the viewer of the thread has to be in an active state to see responses. An active user state is determined upon the users actions, if no actions were made in X seconds then the user is marked as inactive.

Also you may wonder why this could save your server bandwidth and CPU. If a user is refreshing to talk to another members the queries on a normal thread load are way more intense than the ajax call that this modification makes. So if you have 5 people talking to each other none of them have to refresh the page, all they are doing is simple page requests and one intense request when there has actual change.

You can test Live Topic with two users, you will see how amaizing this is... And probably spontaneously combust.

Found a bug? Want to request a feature?

Live Topic - Project Manager

Installation:

This is take less than 3 minutes to install, takes longer to notice its amazing feature. (you need multiple people to be active in the same topic)

Upgrade:

[1.01b to 1.XXb] Uninstall the product, then reinstall it. Overwrite all old files with new files and you should be fine.

[1.02b to 1.03b] Overwrite files, upgrade product (dont install product)

[1.03b to 1.04b] Uninstall the product, then reinstall it. Overwrite all old files with new files and you should be fine.

[1.04b to 1.05b, 1.05b to 1.06b,1.06b to 1.07b] Upgrade the product. Overwrite all old files with new files and you should be fine.

Works With (FF2, FF3, IE6, IE7, IE8, SF2, SF3, CHROME):

vBulletin [3.8.X]

get the vBulletin [3.7.X] version here

INCOMPATIBLE HACKS:

• USC
• PassiveVid (1.x)
• gXboxLive
• Topic (incl. Blog) of the Week
• Marquee Text

Versions:

1.01b
1.02b

fixes

safari 2 support
safari 3 support
google chrome support
added live topic icon on new posts page
fixed security issue, strongly suggest upgrading!

changes

added live edit (to avoid a performance hit i had to add two rows to two tables in the database)
added external style sheet

1.03b

fixes

fix double post
phrase notification
fixed an edit bug for people with table prefixes

changes

ability to change interval in ACP

1.04b

fixes

javascript error for guests
fixed live topic activation (first poster to raise a dead topic)

changes

auto quick reply focus after post

1.05b

fixes

css flaw
js error for unsupported browsers (random)
fixed chrome issue

changes

edit notification - thanks to nso
rebuilding some of the original logic to hopefully prevent product conflicts

1.06b

fixes

fixed a little javascript issue that had to do with displaying posts
uses GPC cleaner now

changes

limit the number of ajax posts on the live topic (example 40) and fade them away.
changed the way the hooks are used
tightened up everything a bit

1.07b

fixes

fixed a bug where the live topic notification always making an ajax call

changes

support user ignore list
changed the way the javascript logic worked (hopefully there are less compatibly issues) added support for IE6 and IE8

1.10

hmm

{Mark As Installed}

{Don't forget to vote for Modification of the Month}

[Ghostt]

how many queries and load does live topic produce? cant beleave that its better for performence.....

[just.b.jealous]

If you have vB3.8.4 and your Live Topics quit working... I think it's caused from an add-on called vBFavorites- try disabling it first then re-check and see if Live Topic still isn't working... mine works perfect after uninstalling vBFavorites from my forums..

[gibby540]

Just updated to 3.8.4 and updated Live Topic. It's not working anymore...

[ctimes]

Not working here after 3.8.4 upgrade

Too bad because this is probably my favorite mod of all time and the users love it.. I really hope it starts being worked on again or someone else picks it up if they can.

[Kolbi]

Are you sure that it doesn´t work anymore?

[Swampfox]

Working fine for me with 3.8.4

[TheKdd]

Working fine for me with 3.8.4 as well.

[wanga]

great work, this is awesome!

[AzzidReign]

Originally Posted by Coders Shack

of course it will make the response larger... but whats the difference if you refresh the page?

bandwidth wise on a active forum this should save you bandwidth.

CPU wise (there may be a hit, depending on your settings)

I still need to run benchmarking tests with various scenarios.

There are already about 10 big boards using this product, i haven't heard any bandwidth complaints. They did however have to tweak the default time settings, to find an equilibrium.

what were your server restrictions? actual data bandwidth, cpu usage, database cpu usage, or database connection limits?

Hi Coders Shack,

Thanks for this great mod. I think my site would fall under a big board. I have over 80k members and I get around 30k unique visitors a day. My only worry is server load. I know you state that it will help reduce load so I'm wanting to give this a try but could you give me an idea of what I should be using for settings to make this work optimally with my server? I'm using:
Processor: Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 1216
Memory: 6GB Burst , 3GB Guaranteed.


AzzidReign

[selwonk]

@Coders Shack

This is a fantastic add-on. I have two forums. On one the only other add-on I had to uninstall to get this to work was vBFavorites. On my largest forum, I make extensive use of the TOTW system and can't turn that off.

Is there anything that any of us can do to help you make this add-on compatible with this hack? I'll be happy to email you Firebug console/AJAX logs, for example, if it would help.

Regards.