Users Online displayed on main page AND on individual forum indexes?

[Inzagi]

@FireFly
Do you also know a way it shows exactly which users are online like on the first forum page and not online the amount of users?

[KuraFire]

Also, I noticed that this doesn't include people who are browsing a thread on forum X, it only shows the amount of people that are browsing the Forum X index.

We're a demanding sod, ain't we?

[Freddie Bingham]

It means watch your server load rise.

[KuraFire]

Ah. Will it also increase bandwidth usage, or ONLY server load?

[Inzagi]

*bump again*
still many questions open

[ethank]

I was thinking of doing something with a heap table that kept track of people using something like map coordinates. Not too much server load, and it could work for the rest of the site.

And it would be much nicer than using the location field. You just have a lookup table that cross referenced the "coordinate" to its actual location, and each page would lookup who else has that coordinate to do a "who's on this page with you"

Still thinking this one through.

Ethan

[Inzagi]

WOW,
sounds good!

Please let me now if you have achieved anythink !
Thank you!

[KuraFire]

Indeed, that would be great.

[ethank]

Starting this one tommorow. Still trying to figure out the best way to do it simply. Will keep you all posted.

Ethan

[ethank]

Progress:

I put the heap table for location:

CREATE TABLE location (
userid smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
x char(255) default NULL,
y char(255) default NULL,
lastactivity int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
sessionhash char(32) NOT NULL default '',
KEY userid (userid)
) TYPE=HEAP;

Then I created a function called updateLocation(x,y)

I put that on all the pages and areas I wanted to track. Some of the info looks like this:

userid   x   y   lastvisit
2861   newthread   86   1002323693     
3430   showthread   9797   1002323781     
3575   calendar   10   1002323641     
3593   showthread   4250   1002323519

I haven't yet done the lookup for column X, and I'm still tweaking how this will work.

Some things I have planned for this include a map drawn using GD to see where people are clustered. Right now I added a feature "Users reading this thread" up.