<--------------Over here in the box where it puts the persons name.

Could you guys add a variable to tell if they are online or offline like you do on the main page, but just in the forum, so that people can see it while reading the stuff? I'm sure it has some use...have it showup below the persons name. Or have the online peoples name appear in a different color from someone thats offline. It's not really important I'm just kinda throwing it out there, maybe someone has a use for it?

[Edited on April 28, 2003 at 8:39 AM. Reason : sd]

4/28/2003 8:37:47 AM

So, in other words, you're wanting the server to check for 50 users everytime you load the page to check if every single person is online when you could click one little link and find out when maybe no one of the other 1000 views wanted to know, but had to wait the extra few milliseconds for the page to query/load?

Just wanted to see if I had your request clear. Thanks.

4/28/2003 2:19:48 PM

^
Geez... what an ass.

4/28/2003 3:22:50 PM

no, its a very thorough explanation of why that is a dumb idea

4/28/2003 3:28:05 PM

agreed... it's not very practical and will slow the servers down even more.

4/28/2003 3:53:37 PM

Its no different in the server load it takes to calculate the number of posts one has made. It doesnt check anything it just loads whatever it has stored just like it would for how many posts someone has made, its not doing some insane calculations.

[Edited on April 28, 2003 at 4:15 PM. Reason : sd]

4/28/2003 4:14:16 PM

Makes sense to me.

4/28/2003 6:21:33 PM

yeah, i think it would jsut store another variable on TWW server that would be updated periodically seeing if people are online. Each page view wouldn't actually have to check if they were online.

i geuss, but i dont' really know anything about this

4/28/2003 6:25:04 PM

Good idea

4/28/2003 7:47:11 PM

Saps, thats pretty funny considering all the shit you have on your info page....

4/28/2003 9:49:31 PM

I didn't say that it wasn't a good explination. I just thought that it was tactless and rude.

4/29/2003 11:33:34 AM

4/29/2003 1:02:54 PM

I don't aim to please...

4/29/2003 1:03:02 PM

Quote :

"Saps, thats pretty funny considering all the shit you have on your info page...."

what the hell does that have to do with me not thinking suamme is being an ass

4/29/2003 1:23:14 PM

Well, while we're at it.....

could you guys add a link to the very top of every single page that will automatically check all of my e-mail boxes and only mine and no one else can use it. I also want a button that will search every thread for everytime a person says n00b and cross reference it with the number of users online at that exact time and who had PM's at the same time. I want this to be a permanant feature and available to everyone just BECAUSE I WNAT IT AND THAT'S IT.

(SORRY, I WAS ACCUSED OF BEING AN ASS AND I BELIEVE I MUST ALWAYS TRY TO LIVE UP TO OTHER'S EXPECTATIONS AND HAVEN'T SO FAR IN THIS THREAD.)

4/29/2003 1:33:09 PM

I don't really see the use when you could check the main page. I mean what would it help? Especially since a lot of the user have auto-login and it takes a while for it to time out. It wouldn't be that effective or practical in my opinion.

4/29/2003 2:44:17 PM

considering that it doesn't refresh for a while after you stop using it, the idea wouldn't be very accurate, and therefore, not useful.

However, there is something like that already, its called premium.

Use my buddies on the front page to stalk your friends.

4/29/2003 3:31:37 PM

Quote :

"Its no different in the server load it takes to calculate the number of posts one has made. It doesnt check anything it just loads whatever it has stored just like it would for how many posts someone has made, its not doing some insane calculations."

Post count is more than likely stored in it's own field, so that they server wouldn't have to go through and count posts every time someone posts. Somehow I doubt that if CassTheSass deleted a thread, someone's post count wouldn't go down (and feel free to correct me on this -- I'm not even going to pretend to know the inner workings of TWW. I only know how I would do it).

More than likely the way it's done (or again, the way I'd do it) would be to cross-reference open sessions with a user's last login session. If they match (i.e. if the session exists and matches a session that a user has used recently), that person is displayed online. Even that is fairly intensive because it involves both database and file system access. Well, it's not too bad when you do it once or twice, but doing it 50 times per page who knows how many times, it would probably get pretty bad, pretty quickly.

What you're suggesting sounds as though a field would be added as to whether the person is online or offline. Marked online when they login, and offline when they logout. The problem with that is users that don't logout. You'd need a cron job to go through and mark everyone as offline since you would again need to check on whether a session is open or not, check it with the database, and only then could you mark them offline.

Of course, that's the way it works with PHP/MySQL on Linux. It may very well be different on Windows, but I can't imagine that it would be. Again though, feel free to correct me.

4/29/2003 3:53:21 PM

i'm 99% sure that post count does not go down if a thread is deleted

4/29/2003 4:54:07 PM

lets find out

4/29/2003 4:56:24 PM

yeah... stinger lost THOUSANDS of posts when the post padder thread was deleted last year.

4/29/2003 7:36:27 PM

but that may have been a special case there

4/29/2003 8:04:39 PM

i didn't notice mine went down when aielman's thread was deleted last week, or one i had deleted about a month ago... maybe it was just so trivial i didnt' notice... is that really true smath?

4/29/2003 8:23:27 PM

That's like rolling back the odometer.... it's a no-no..

I'm talking out of my ass.

4/29/2003 8:34:18 PM

Quote :

"is that really true smath?"

yeah... i lost like 100 or something

4/29/2003 10:14:20 PM