Is anyone able to create an add-on that live refreshes the discussion list per ajax?
something like this digg spy effect...

i'd love it

& Perhaps a discussion update thingy too like I've mentioned here.

Mireille, you need some kind of hint that there are new comments otherwise you'll ignore them as already being there. Otherwise I really like this idea, it would be very slick.

P.S. might be worth getting rid of "Add-on: " from the topic title as well ;)

Perhaps have the refreshed discussions a different color? Or multiple colors? Like one color per 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 2 minutes etc.

Top idea Krak :D Would also be good to be able to have a little icon (perhaps an exclamation mark !) inserted into the comment as well, just as another visual indicator that the comment is new since you initially viewed the page. These, along with the comment colours, would be cleared on refresh of the discussion.

Question: What happens with pagination? ;)

[-Stash-]: a little icon (perhaps an exclamation mark !) inserted into the comment as well, just as another visual indicator that the comment is new since you initially viewed the page
That and flash new comments like it does when you write one (aculos effect)

Having a rainbow of colors really isn't helping designers :D

Instead of rainbow colours, you could just vary the opacity of a specified colour (admin/theme changeable in the extension settings) over time.

But for the yellow fade thing, I quite like it. I still think the idea of an icon (perhaps achieved via CSS in the background of the comment, put there by JS, or even via a CSS class with PHP?) would be best as it should work with more styles/themes. The yellow fade looks quite hideous on some styles.

But hey — why can't this just be an option that the admin decides upon? :)

The notification... how about this appearing as fixed, absolutely positioned (to the browser window) CSS? That way, it will appear in the same place no matter where you are in the discussion.

How about something that just refreshes the page every so many seconds, like 30?

Yes, it would. You just want to reload the discussion or comment grid. Anyway, I found this little js that does this if anyone's interested. I'm taking a javascript course now and found this one in research for an assignment. It's an old script because it's checking Netscape version to determine whether to reload a noframe-version of the html file or a frame-version. It does work well. The 50 is 50 seconds to wait.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
browserVer = parseInt(navigator.appVersion);
if (browserVer >= 3) version = "n3";
else version = "n2";
Text = "<META HTTP-EQUIV='Refresh' CONTENT='50;URL=js_wk2_lesson.htm'>"
Ret = "<META HTTP-EQUIV='Refresh' CONTENT='50;URL=noFrames.htm'>"
if (version == "n3") document.write(Text);
else document.write(Ret)
</SCRIPT>


Certainly looking forward to something coming of this project :)

mireille - Well, I am an old guy.

I could write it as part of the Mootools suite of javascript add-ons I've done so far. Shouldn't be too difficult. What's this about a rainbow effect and exclamation marks? Surely the discussions show you when there are new comments with a little red number?

Edit: I could make this a two-part add-on. One part would deal with the main discussions page and just perform a normal update. There's enough indication of new comments in a discussion to simply simulate a page refresh.

On the comments page I quite like the rainbow effect. If it's added by javascript then it will automatically disappear on a discussion refresh. As for pagination, new comments will be visually just added to the bottom if you're on the last page. If you refresh it will be paginated as normal. If you're not on the first page then if a new comment's added, the pagination links at the bottom would be somehow highlighted and a hint would appear with the amount of comments that have been added so far.

I will try to send the minimum amount of data via Ajax to reduce server overhead. What do people think is an appropriate update time? 2 minutes? Anything less would make it into a chat rather than a forum.

Should it be user or admin defined? If user defined it could be abused to crash the host's server. Perhaps allowing the admin to specify the minimum and default update time would be best.

Yup, it will be user-configurable. The default value and the minimum value is only settable by a user with a role with the appropriate permission.

I only asked for admin defined, but the way you've chosen is very good!

What a luck, I'm working for a webhosting company, so there aren't any traffic issiues :P

Then they don't have to use it?

It's a must-have addon for any play-by-post forum. It would get along very well with the excellent DiceRoller.

Why not have the auto-refresh turned off by default, and only be activated by a button in the panel or whatever? You could use a non-persistent/session cookie to remember that the feature is turned on, but would turn the feature off if the user shuts down the browser (since the cookie would be deleted).

That way, the feature would only get used by the users who want it, and only during the times when those users want it. Users don't need it running 24/7. They don't need it running if they're only doing a quickie 5-minute forum check on their work break. If it's on by default, lazy users won't bother to turn it off, and if it's persistent, neither would they turn it off after turning it on.

I know it would be a little annoying to have to turn it on every time you log in, but considering the potentially heavy server strain this extension could cause, it sounds like a good compromise between users & admins.

This is actually taking a little longer than I had planned. Should be released soon though.

Discussions are done. Working on comments now. I actually think the feature that will take the most time is that rainbow effect =P

Interesting you should mention styles. One of the issues I'm having is that in order to make the updates as snappy as possible I'm trying to cut down on database queries. This means I only have the bare minimum information at my disposal. Also, the ajax script doesn't load Vanilla's API to ensure that the script itself is run incredibly fast. What this all means is that (for discussions at least) there's a bit of styling information missing. The missing information is mostly superfluous and discussions will display more or less how you would expect them to. Also, bearing in mind that it is only the updated discussions which are affected and that everything goes back to normal after a page refresh, I thought it was a suitable sacrifice.

So, styling might be an issue and different themes will (obviously) also be an issue. Still, I will be on-board with fixing and adjusting it to peoples' needs and will be happy to accept any patches.

As for the rainbow effect, I thought of having a main colour (probably some form of yellow or red) which the newest post would get. Any previously-updated posts would have their colour decreased gradually to white to show how 'new' they are (which is what Stash suggested). Page refreshing would obviously remove all this. Icons are possible too.

It will eventually have a multitude of display features that are configurable but for the moment I want to get a basic, working version out.

One way of 'fixing' the styling issues which are certain to arise would be to have the extension provide an update 'digest'. Like a separate panel that slides out of the right side that shows the amount of updates to date. It would be expandable to show more information and could be separately styled. It's less integrated but it solves the problem of trying to add stuff to a specifically configured and styled layout.