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}

[Coders Shack]

Originally Posted by DISLEX

If the thread "times out" from being active, but a user is still on the page, is the script smart enough to stop pinging the server and trying to grab new posts? Or does the AJAX keep running in the background but the thread just stops updating? Tryin to see if the AJAX keeps making the server run extra commands when it doesn't need to

its smart enough, keep in mind i developed this making sure it wasn't intensive.

[Coders Shack]

Originally Posted by dodgeboard.com

Got it working - although I'm not exactly sure what did it (scratches head) but hey, it's working for now. Donation on it's way

I'm glad everything worked out

thanks for the donation, i'll be investing it into another case of energy drinks.

[jambo_1969]

Cracking add on - but it's not very server friendly when you have a lot of members on one particular thread....

Will keep an eye on it tho...

[Coders Shack]

Originally Posted by jambo_1969

Cracking add on - but it's not very server friendly when you have a lot of members on one particular thread....

Will keep an eye on it tho...

have you messed with the options in the ACP?

depending on your community and server you should adjust the Live Topic settings.

[EvilSeph]

Hi,

Thanks for this mod, it's pretty cool ! Currently testing it out on a test forum hence why I haven't marked as installed yet.

Some things I've noticed are that the notice about this being a live topic etc. doesn't always show up (what are the conditions to make it appear?) and the little notification box that notifies you of new live topics (I believe) is broken:

JS shows:
vbphrase["livetopic_newresponses"] = "%1$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left] new responses (<a href=\'showthread.php?t=%2$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left]&goto=newpost\'>live topic</a>)";

and the text "%1$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left] new responses (<a href=\'showthread.php?t=%2$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left]&goto=newpost\'>live topic</a>)" appears to be what shows in the notification box that pops up (I'm not sure what causes it to pop up either...)

Thanks again for this plugin

[Chet T16]

With regards to PassiveVid, i have 1.1.1 installed on my 3.8.1 vB and it is almost working properly.

If i post a youtube link the embedded video shows up in the browser i've posted from but not in the auto updated thread. A "proper" refresh brings up the embedded video.

I will upgrade to the latest version of PassiveVid now and see if there is any difference

[mikeB]

I went so far as to upgrade from vb 3.7.4 to latest - 3.8.1 - and disabled all of my products, overwrote old files and still I get noting in IE 7 or FF 3 - in IE I just get this error (see attached)

anyone have any idea what is wrong - I too would be happy to contribute $$ for some help to get this working

[Coders Shack]

I have been doing all my development in FF3, IE6 has horrible error reporting.

PM me with some details like are you doing anything custom, id be happy to help

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by EvilSeph

Hi,

Thanks for this mod, it's pretty cool ! Currently testing it out on a test forum hence why I haven't marked as installed yet.

Some things I've noticed are that the notice about this being a live topic etc. doesn't always show up (what are the conditions to make it appear?) and the little notification box that notifies you of new live topics (I believe) is broken:

JS shows:
vbphrase["livetopic_newresponses"] = "%1$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left] new responses (<a href=\'showthread.php?t=%2$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left]&goto=newpost\'>live topic</a>)";

and the text "%1$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left] new responses (<a href=\'showthread.php?t=%2$template_hook[navbar_buttons_left]&goto=newpost\'>live topic</a>)" appears to be what shows in the notification box that pops up (I'm not sure what causes it to pop up either...)

Thanks again for this plugin

This sounds like the same problem I am having (here is the post). If I look in the page source for a thread, I see this at the bottom:

vbphrase["livetopic_newresponses"] = "%15.00 new responses (<a href=\'showthread.php?t=%25.00&goto=newpost\'>live topic</a>)";

I know where the 5.00 comes from (it's a variable that I use under my username). The "1" (before 5.00) and "2" (before 5.00 in t=) are supposed to be used to replace part of the phrase in this line:

vbphrase['livetopic_newresponses'].replace(/%1/, new_posts).replace(/%2/, threadid);

in display_notification function: in the javascript. I'm not a javascript coder, so I really don't know how to debug that problem.

[Coders Shack]

hmm, let me see if its like this on my test board.