Rethinking "Who's Online"

[welo]

So you know how every hack in here that needs a "Who's Online" modification tells you to go to includes/functions_online.php and throw in stuff like:

PHP Code:

// who's online for links library
case 'links':
    $userinfo['action'] = 'Viewing Links Library';
    break; 


... to line ~670, then add:

PHP Code:

// who's online for links library
case 'local_links.php':
    $userinfo['activity'] = 'links';
    break; 


... to line ~1275? Then whenever you install something else you keep opening that same file and adding more stuff. An obvious recourse would be to just create two more corresponding files then include them like:

PHP Code:

<?
// functions_online.php
// 669 lines of beginning code
include ("online_hacks01.php");
// 606 more lines of code
include ("online_hacks02.php");
// 240 final lines of code
?>

... while online_hacks[01/02].php contain what's shown above, and you'd never have to open up functions_online.php again. Whenever you hacked in something else that needed "Who's Online" you just add to online_hacks[01/02].php.

What I'd really like to do instead is include only one file that assigns a var to each section of code, and nothing seems to work. Any ideas? I'm not all that great with functions, although this seems to be the wisest option.