Auto Refresh

kps88

Full Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2008
Messages
22,515
Or something like it. BBC recently introduced it for their live sports text commentary and it got me thinking, it would be perfect for a forum.

Basically how it works is that the new update automatically appears on the top of the screen, without the screen refreshing. So no need to break those F5 buttons.

It would be great over here. A new post in a thread could appear instantly without having to refresh the page, making conversations/arguements alot more free flowing. Not to mention while your reading the thread, new posts can keep piling up at the bottom.

Don't know anything about the technology behind it or how easy it is to implement, but its something to think about me thinks.
 
kps88 said:
Or something like it. BBC recently introduced it for their live sports text commentary and it got me thinking, it would be perfect for a forum.

Basically how it works is that the new update automatically appears on the top of the screen, without the screen refreshing. So no need to break those F5 buttons.

It would be great over here. A new post in a thread could appear instantly without having to refresh the page, making conversations/arguements alot more free flowing. Not to mention while your reading the thread, new posts can keep piling up at the bottom.

Don't know anything about the technology behind it or how easy it is to implement, but its something to think about me thinks.
Click to expand...

donate the money for the software and we´ll be on our way
 
I doubt it's possible to integrate Ajax into threads on vbulletin. It would be very server intensive anyway so I wouldn't expect it to happen anytime soon.

Besides, it's a forum, not a chat room.
 
It won't be the same as a chat room. You would still have to click post reply and then submit, it won't be anywhere near the same pace as a chat room.

Imo this would basically make it the same thing without the need to constantly refresh the page to check whether someone has replied to your post etc.
 
Niall would know for certain but i could see it being a problem for the server.
 
This is certainly an interesting suggestion, it also caught my eye on the BBC and left me wondering if something similar would be useful on RedCafe. Bazalini also came to me a few months ago with a similar suggestion.

For the normal use case of the site, where everything is divided into separate topics which people browse, it wouldn't work. Somebody reaches the end of a topic and then what - waits until a new reply *might* appear? Not practical.

However, for a single topic that a lot of people look at, which is tracking an event, like a Matchday thread, then it could work. I'm already looking into the feasibility of this so watch this space ;)

Btw, under the right circumstances Ajax can actually help reduce the load on a server. If it saves people refreshing a page completely (which can be several hundred kilobytes), and instead the server just has to return a tiny chunk of HTML (or nothing), then it can be beneficial. However, it does depend on how often the server is 'polled' - too much and it could well add to the server load.
 
Wow, I think this is kind of a neat idea, seems a bit harsh to ridicule the idea, especially on a board so active, seeing threads update live as opposed to clicking F5 all the time would be fantastic.

Possibly integrate it ONLY for members, might take less effort and development to have... it would be fantastic for the matchday threads.
 
It would be pretty revolutionary I must say. No forum on the internet has this property hitherto.
 
It's daft, and lets just take a basic scenario as to why it's daft. I'm here at the bottom of the thread, because I view threads with the last post last, typing away into the quick reply box, and then ten new posts are incoming. Where are they going to be displayed exactly? Just look at a thread that has a lot of images in it, and you're scrolling down yet the images above still have not been loaded, when they come in the page starts flying around all over the show.

It would only work in the view last post first scenario, and I don't like that.
 
WeasteDevil said:
It's daft, and lets just take a basic scenario as to why it's daft. I'm here at the bottom of the thread, because I view threads with the last post last, typing away into the quick reply box, and then ten new posts are incoming. Where are they going to be displayed exactly? Just look at a thread that has a lot of images in it, and you're scrolling down yet the images above still have not been loaded, when they come in the page starts flying around all over the show.

It would only work in the view last post first scenario, and I don't like that.
Click to expand...

as has been mentioned i think this would only really work on matchday threads, the rest of the time it would end in chaos
 
In fact, it's even worse. I've just changed the settings to show the last post first, yet the reply box is still at the bottom of the page rather than at the top, which would make sense in that mode.
 
Weaste I'm not sure I understand you. What is wrong with the last post appearing at the bottom of the screen, while your typing in your quick reply? Quick reply is always the last thing on the page so I don't see how it would cause the page to go scrolling up and down too much. When the posts exceed the page limit, they would then carry onto the next page
 
Niall said:
Not if the posts are in a fixed height scrollable div ;)
Click to expand...
1) If this is the case, then there will need to be a scrollable div tag placeholder which wastes space (otherwise spawning the div will scroll things down).
2) If there are a lot of posts, then the scrollable div will become tedious.
3) Putting things in a scrollable div can be confusing unless it is made explicit it is a separate div.
 
Ok, I have a possible suggestion for this that would make sense. Why not have a little Ajax updated thing next to the "Post Reply" button that shows you any new posts that may have come in as a number? A simple click on that would then make the new posts appear? Possibly have it as an option in the settings so users could choose between that and the automatic appearance of new posts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.