Update/Notify HTML from backend asynchronously without AJAX polling - php

I am developing a dashboard for CRM, where admins can view/process all orders.
Requirement:
Whenever a user places an order from website/mobile app, one dedicated PHP file is called from which the user data is inserted into the Database.Now I want to notify the online admin about the new order without refreshing the page.
I know it's very easy if you use AJAX polling, but I don't want to use AJAX polling. And I tried PHP Websocket also by referring this tutorial, but unfortunately that doesn't work on live server.
Kindly let me know if there is any workarounds or any technology I can implement to achieve my requirement.
I am using HTML5 frontend and PHP for backend.

You should select a WebSocket framework like socket.io. There are many advantages of not using web sockets directly due to web socket limitations in some browsers and platforms . Socket.io frameworks like socket.io addresses this issue by being backward compatible.
Socket.io original back-end implementation runs on node.js. So unless you don't want to have node js, look for a socket.io php wrapper like elephant.io.

Related

PHP websocket realtime updates on multiple devices

I am trying to implement a very simple self-hosted (docker) pubsub client update system using websockets or SSE for my PHP application.
I would like that a specific javascript action on my website triggers a php server-side update (via ajax) which should then lead to an update to all subscribed devices for the particular channel/topic. The subscribed devices should use javascript listening to one channel each.
Do you know any simple PHP ws libraries which are capable of that? Can SSE be triggered in that way and also utilize channels? How about in-built PHP socket function? Ideally I would like to stick to PHP solution in order not to deal with translations and in-between REST APIs.
After researching this for days and going through solutions like RabbitMQ, Redis, Kafka, RatchetPHP, ZeroMQ, socket.io, RPC, SSE and etc I am completely lost. I need some guidance on which way to go.
Among all possible solutions here is how I would do it:
Install a web socket server, preferably implemented in PHP, on you Linux system.
Your web clients register with the server and listen for messages like broadcast from the server.
Your ajax script registers also with the server and sends a broadcast to the server if all work is done.
The server passes the broadcast to all registered clients.
You could use my implementation of such a web socket server that comes with all the needed client
libraries for JavaScript as well as for PHP that implement broadcast and feedback.
See https://github.com/napengam/phpWebSocketServer

Is this the right choice for realtime notifications? php + Ratchet (websockets)

I'm new to websocket and realtime applications and I would need some clarifications.
I developed an application for a customer that involve some users and product data.
It is a PHP web application running on the internal apache server.
The client side of the app is based mainly on JQuery, and for some parts usable from tablet devices we used JQuery mobile / html5.
Now the customer is asking to add some messaging/notification feature in this way:
a user will be able to post a message about a product and the web console of the other users must be "showed" a realtime notification. We are thinking to add something for example in the header of the page to notify that new messages are present.
I made some research and as all the app is already built in PHP I was thinking to go for Ratchet. Is this a good idea?
If I understood this well, I will need to install on the server also the ratchet server components and use for client side integration something like AutobahnJS library; is it right?
Has anyone already built something like this?
Is there any problem communicating between Apache and Ratchet server?
That okie,
I tried use Ratchet/AutobahnJs Websocket, that's awesome. But I have (special?) problem :o in here.
In your case, I think you can use AJAX, it's simpler than Websocket. You can "zip" multi-notifications in to 1 response and request server every 5 seconds.
Yeah it's a good way to go about it, ajax leaves you with a lot of overheads. it's pretty simple to get going with ratchet and it will give you the ability to send notifications in real time, as well as the notifications it will allow you to edit the page as well, i.e change counters/ icons / message count etc, basically same as ajax only in realtime and no need to poll for new data.
It also means you'll be learning some new stuff which is always a bonus, for this alone i would do it.

Does drupal or joomla allow a combination node.js and socket.io with php?

I'm looking into the development of a site where socket use is a must for real time updates. I understand with wordpress it is difficult to incorporate node.js and socket.io and was wondering if this is the case with drupal. Specifically could I incorporate node.js and socket.io with php? What specific steps would I need to take? I appreciate the help and of course if you give me a good answer, I'll rate you up.
There are currently Node.js modules that connect to Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress. I wrote the one for Joomla: https://github.com/jlleblanc/nodejs-joomla You can find all of these through NPM. First, you would download one of these modules, then you would also download the Socket.io module. Then you would write server side code connecting the CMS to Socket.io. Finally, you would write client-side code to talk to the socket running in Node.
You can have it separated and since you want some client-server communication with node.js, you can have it - outside Drupal (this is the easiest and cleanest way).
CMS you use (be it Drupal or Wordpress) does not limit your JavaScript from using socket.io and node.js for the calls you want to be made outside the CMS server-side code. You can eg. read the same database Drupal/Wordpress does, but using Node.js and returning the results directly to the client-side JavaScript script.
You can integrate Socket.IO with whatever technology you like, but you need to think of them as 2 separate parts that need to communicate.
I see 2 solutions for Socket.IO to communicate with an external service (Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, whatever):
1) Making a rest API for your Socket.IO application (for example using Express for the API layer and then passing messages to Socket.IO with an EventEmitter).
2) The better solution in my opinion is to use a message queue like Redis, RabbitMQ or ZeroMQ. The Drupal website would send a message down the channel to Socket.IO and then Socket.IO would send that message to the client(s).
If you are creating a system that needs authentication also, I suggest you don't let your users send message directly with Socket.IO, but make an Ajax call to your main server instead (Drupal for ex.). That way you can check the user's identity more easily. (This scenario would be a fit for a chat based system that requires authentication)
Although this video tutorial is for EventMachine with Faye, the same logic could apply to your app: http://railscasts.com/episodes/260-messaging-with-faye

Building a native mobile application - based on a PHP web-app [closed]

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I have had a PHP application developed. I want to use phonegap.com or a similar approach to develop native applications based on the same MySQL database. In other words, connect the mobile applications with the web one.
It needs to do one or two things differently. Firstly, use the native GPS features to determine where a user is - I'm guessing this can just be done via HTML5?
Secondly, send push notifications whenever the web-application user receives a notification.
All of the information is already there, on the MySQL database, and everything apart from the two features above function properly.
I'm am currently having an API developed for everything on the web-application - making it API-centric. In my head, it will be easy to connect the two versions via the API.
For example, a user signs up on the web application. He is then offered to iphone app for download.
Is it possible to get him to log-in with the same via the iPhone. On the other side, is it possible for him to search the database, via the iphone, and "add a new friend" - making the connection of the two users in the friends table - in that, the friend is also a friend on the web-application?
I've been reading a lot on all of the available options and am still very confused! Any help would be very helpful.
I'm not a phone developer myself, however I've just finished building a native Android App which connects to a website and is able to login, do stuff that is possible to do on the website as well. If the GPS tracking integration is using the native features than it is unlikely to use HTML5 (though I'm not sure how it works).
Basically in order to connect to a remote database/server you need to make HTTP requests from the phone to you server side script.
So just to conclude:
In order to achieve the result you're looking for the work-flow could look like this:
1.Mobile user fills a form ->
2.App does an HTTP request to a server side script ->
3.script does the hard work (e.g. connects to the database) ->
4.script renders a result ->
5.Mobile app displays the result.
I hope this helps.
Im my objective opinion there are three possibilities:
Get started with Objective-C
You will have to learn how to code and you will get the best native experience for your users. This will easily allow you to use the GPS positioning or you can cache content on your phone. A key problem with the internet connection on the phone is that the internet connection can be flaky. So you have to design for this. You took the right approach already: using the direct MySQL C-API to connect directly to the database server would not work that well, because this protocol is not stateless. You have to first login to the server and then you can send your SQL queries.
By using your API which is hopefully stateless, maybe even a RESTful API, then you can take some nice shortcuts for your native iPhone app. You could then use the RestKit library to easily convert your JSON answers from the server into objects, do caching and other nice features.
Write a web app
The second possibility would be to build a nice web app using state-of-the-art HTML5 technologies. The great thing about that is that you then would write an Android app as well as both mobile devices use a webkit browser. Well it is not exactly the case as there are different versions of Android out there with different screen sizes, but in general this assumption holds. Take a look at Google's web app for Google Calendar for example, I think it is a good compromise. You can also get a home screen icon for this and you will have no app approval process and can update anytime. Using HTML5 offline storage gives you some degree of freedom.
Using Phonegap
The option of writing the app in PhoneGap or some other HTML wrapper framework which will generate Objective-C code is a possible one, but in my opinion this is not really a good option. The reason is that you are working on some kind of intermediate layer and if anything goes wrong or you encounter bugs you will have to dive down to objective-c anyways. The other problem is concerning updates of iOS. It can break some dependencies and then you have to wait until your intermediate gets updated to use the new features.
Phonegap would be a good idea to develop this app. Phonegap although supports client side script only - which means you cannot embed php in its code. However you can easily create AJAX calls in your script that get and send data from your already developed php app/api.
Phonegap also supports GPS and data storage options where you can store the data locally and sync later when internet is available.
For reverse sync (server to client), you would have two options.
1. Create a javascript to make frequent ajax calls to check for updates.
2. Use Push Notifications (Here a tutorial for iOS APNs and Phonegap integration) - http://devgirl.org/2012/10/19/tutorial-apple-push-notifications-with-phonegap-part-1/
Using phonegap depends on one's preference. On the positive side, you save on time/cost as same code is used for all platforms. On the negative side, it has a slight lag when changing pages causing it to look like a website, but you can avoid that by using something like jquery mobile to prefetch all pages and then animate them back and forth. This will also help in uploading data in a separate independent thread while the user would be free to roam around the app.
Hope that helps.
Simply put, the best way to go is for you to use a php web service with phone gap.
You can also go through android using PHP and android. This is a very good and simple way to go. Try the tutorial here
You may tray Xamarin (part of .Net) with the free version of Visual Studio Community and then interact with your PHP web-app. You can then compile the native Xamarin app (written in C#) to Android and iOS.

Is it possible to run XMPP based PHP and Javascript Multiplayer Network Game in FaceBook?

let me introduce my story first. To develop a multiplayer network game in facebook, flash used to be a king but it consumes a lot of resources for client and I feel like it isn't worth for a card game. So I come with an idea that front-end will use Javascript (of course with jQuery) and backend with PHP. But for real-time communication, it isn't possible just with PHP and Javascript. It doesn't make sense to record every movement of players in MySQL and display back to another browsers. So I come with an idea with XMPP Services. XMPP services can even communicate browser to browser and display contents with Strophe and Javascript even without with PHP.
Finally, I've got every tools I need but I have few questions that I can't answer myself.
1) How XMPP server work between PHP and Javascript? I need to get/post user records from MySQL and calculate movements then forward results to intended user. There will be an Authentication system too so that's gonna be taken care by PHP as I'm not wrong.
2) This question is the title of this post.. Is it possible to run XMPP based PHP and Javascript Multiplayer Network Game in FaceBook?
Thanks in advance for all of your time and advices!
The connection would work using PHP sockets, and you could easily use Ajax to send data to PHP to send on to the XMPP server. There are also a number of libraries for communicating with XMPP servers using PHP. As for Facebook, it shouldn't have any effect on your script - if I remember correctly Facebook runs your app in its own sandbox so you shouldn't have to do anything special to get around the Facebook API.

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