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}

[decipher442]

Love the hack its f-ing awesome... Much props!!!!!!!

Thanks!

[nso]

For some reason I get the following in my error log:

Invalid SQL:

                       SELECT COUNT(*) AS count
                       FROM post AS post
                       WHERE
                               (threadid = 122766
                               AND visible = 1
                               AND dateline > 1233933678.:
                               AND userid != 42148)
                               OR (threadid = 122766
                               AND visible = 1
                               AND lastedit > 1233933928);

MySQL Error   : You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ':
                               AND userid != 42148)
                               OR (threadid = 122766
                               AND visible = 1
                               A' at line 6

I see you sanitize the offending variable in the beginning of livetopic_hooks.php, but you only use the escape_string-procedure. You should probably have used $vbulletin->input->clean_array_gpc to ensure that the variable is an integer.

As to why the .: is added, I have no clue.

I'm btw still running 1.04b, so I apologize if this has been fixed in later versions.

[Bounce]

Very very nice, thank you , going to try this one out and get back to you with feedback

[Bounce]

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)

Feedback so far is its taking that long to install this ??

Importing Product, Please Wait...

[Bounce]

Does not work in Firefox then?

[Bounce]

Originally Posted by hIBEES

Does not work in Firefox then?

Nor in IE7

Well at least not here lol

I've been on IE on the same thread and its had 6 replies and not one have showed up :erm:

[alpayton]

Just had to uninstall this - our server host had a FIT and threw our forum offline due to this mod. Had to get a private server as we're not trusted any more... VERY unfortunate turn of events for today....now we're back to scratch.

[Bounce]

I noticed a large increase on server load with this installed,

I'm on a dedicated and pre-install server load was under 1,installed it shot up to 8 and rising

Uninstalled

[Dr.Viggy]

This is the most incredible mod i've seen. Too often do you ahve a hot thread and you reply but by the time you submit, 3 people already have and your post is out of date. this solves that problem and adds a whole new dimension to active threads. Thank you so much for this.

[Coders Shack]

Originally Posted by alpayton

Just had to uninstall this - our server host had a FIT and threw our forum offline due to this mod. Had to get a private server as we're not trusted any more... VERY unfortunate turn of events for today....now we're back to scratch.

Originally Posted by hIBEES

I noticed a large increase on server load with this installed,

I'm on a dedicated and pre-install server load was under 1,installed it shot up to 8 and rising

Uninstalled

and decent dedicated server could run this mod with very few issues (with the default settings). If your hosting package cant handle the load then please go into your ACP and go under the Live Topic section and play with the settings.

I do not recommend this mod for sites that get high traffic and run on shared hosting, as they limit the simultaneous connections. If you have a shared forum that has a small user base then it should be fine. And if you have hosting that doesn't limit connections you should be fine.