news ticker similar to facebook in php - php

I want to create a live news ticker similar to facebook in functionality.
I have already created a page where it will be having the news ticker ... Also, the database is ready to have the data ... What I don't know how to do is the rotation of the ticker as soon as new news have been added to the database ... I can do it when the page refreshes ... but I can't have it done live ... I wish somebody help me.
I have everything ready to be published, but waiting for the news-ticker ...
NOTE: I have only psudo-code no php finished yet.

You probably want to use timed AJAX calls. For example, every 1 minute send a request to the server to see if anything new is added. If yes, then display the new piece of news to replace the currently displayed one.

You'll need some kind of ajax-mechanism.
You can either poll a url every x seconds to see if there's any updates, you if you really want real-time, you'll need something like nodejs on the server (or anything that's not as cgi-like as PHP).
But if you want to keep things simple, I'd start with a simple Ajax solution and polling every x seconds.

I would suggest doing it with AJAX, poll the database once every 30 seconds for new entries.
AJAX let's you communciate asynchronously with the server, this way you can get new data without a page refresh.

Related

force reload/refresh a second webpage through php

I'm trying to force to reload a (second) page if a criteria is met in php
But if the criteria is met, i want the page to force reload everywhere, even if 10 people have it open at once for example.
for simplicty lets say the code is like this:
in /filelocation/script.php:
if {$data == "ok"}{
reload/refresh "reload.php" if it's open somewhere;
}
I came across a software that basicly does this, and i want to understand how this is done.
(it works cross device somehow, so i asume its done through php somehow)
Well, in your PHP code, you cannot simply reload/refresh something for all the users connected. This is simply because the PHP code is only executed when your browser requests a page on the server so it's only executed to build the HTML response and then it stops executing. Once the browser has the HTML response it will render the page and then it waits for an action from the user to do something else (such as clicking on a link or posting a form).
I imagine that you would like that when a specific user does something, like posting a comment or buying a product, you would like all the other visitors to be notified that a new comment has been posted or that the number of products available has been reduced.
To do that, you need to implement some JavaScript which is executed in the browser of each visitor. The idea is to keep a connection with the server with the help of web sockets. This way, you can inform the browser that something has changed.
You could google to find some examples of PHP apps using web sockets. The first example I found:
https://www.twilio.com/blog/create-php-websocket-server-build-real-time-even-driven-application
Another solution could be to have some JavaScript doing some pooling, meaning that every N seconds, it executes an Ajax request to the server to ask if something has changed. This can be done with the help of setTimeout(yourFunction, 10000) to call a JavaScript function every 10 seconds. This function will do the Ajax request and then update the part of your page that needs to change. Just be carefull that if you get a lot of users on your site then you'll produce quite a lot of load on your server. So this wouldn't be a good solution, but it could be an alternative to the web sockets.

How to update page content while multiple users view it at the same time in PHP?

My page is visited by multiple users at the same time.
User 1: visits the page and changes the name of title
User 2: user 2 was already on that page but sees the old title, the title automatically has to be updated to new title.
I know i can simply use AJAX to call every 5 minutes, but im trying to see if there is any other way possible that fires an event to all instances of the page opened by different users that if one of them is updated all other pages get automatically updated with latest data without the wait of 5 minute ajax call. Ajax seems inefficient since it will do many ajax calls and also what happens if user 1 updates title while user 2 updates title as well before user 2's page has been updated with 5 minute ajax call.
Not asking for a code, just need an advise whether I should keep using AJAX calls every 5 minutes and be happy with it or there is a better solution.
Try investigating web sockets for real time, two way communication between server and browser.
http://socketo.me/
I'm in the early stages of working with it myself but it seems like a solution that would fit your requirements.
Also, maybe look at push notifications
e.g. http://www.pubnub.com/blog/php-push-api-walkthrough

Efficiency of 24/7 AJAX polling

I have a request to provide the following solution:
Two web pages with 1 form on them. This form is submitted and inserted into a database. Another web page is used to display the results of the form inputs in a tag cloud solution. My question is what exact workflow would people use for this? My thoughts were like so:
1 MySQL database, 1 html page running AJAX and jQuery for the tag cloud/polling. 1 PHP processing script which grabs new data from the database and serves it out to the html page. Now, what is the effect of this being ran for say 24 hours, constantly updating via AJAX ie, every 10 seconds or should i use a different method. The results from the form need to be saved for offline viewing after the 24 hour period, so i cant just stream the form results straight to the page.
All advice welcome using any technologies...
Should add, there's a possibility that it may be on a LAN with no internet access, possibly thinking of a local XAMPP installation...
given that there is 3 clients, and they poll every 10 sec, that means
approx 25k requests per day to keep the page updated. which is hardly any load for a xampp install, especially on a local network.
i would suggest testing the polling and see if it still works after 24hours.
are there any limitations in the browser that stop the script from working after x amount of time. (i have never tried that long before sorry)
an alternative approach is,
does it need to poll continuously, or can you just have a refresh button

How to make notification on message send like Facebook

How a notification can be shown after we are receiving a new message like FACEBOOK is displaying without refreshing a page. ( facebook is showing RED color notification after receiving a new message).
Thank You
There are two ways out there, you poll, or Comet.
Polling means you ask this question to your server periodically: "is there a new message?" with Ajax. If there is a new message, server returns it or the number of new messages.
Or you can implement some kind of Comet. Comet is a technology which contains open connections between client and server. Since there is an open connection, your server can send new information to clients.
After the number of new messages arrived to you, you can edit your DOM via javascript to show a red notification whereever you want.
You need to use setInterval to periodically check for any new updates and then, if they are found, use ajax to pull in the message.
Easiest way is to use jquery to update the content of a div at a sepecific interval...
#idofdivtoupdate
as it says.. the id of the div you want to auto update...
setinterval is in miliseconds.. (so 5000 checks every 5 seconds)
function updatecontent(){
$('#idofdivtoupdate').load('yourserverscript.php');
}
setInterval("updatecontent()", 5000 );
If ive understood you correctly you need to look up a technology called AJAX, its a combination of JavaScript and XML which allows the sending and receiving of data behind the scenes ie without needed to refresh the page. Theres plenty of tutorials/information out there about it and its not difficult to get the hang of, hope this helps.

After 30 seconds, update MYSQL database

I've been looking around here on SO and Googling, however I can't find anything that fits my description.
What I want to do is update the database if the page has not been refreshed after 30 seconds. I want to email a person with the contents of a form {submitted by a different user} (I can do that) IF the person has NOT visited the page (I can do that) within the last 30 seconds.
What I've tried to do is make the page that should be visited refresh every 30 seconds, and so I figured if I did something like after 31 seconds, edit the database (so if the refreshed page was not refreshed, the database editing would run).
I'm sorry if this sounds complicated, there's probably a better way to do this, but I'm not sure how.
The bigger picture is I'm trying to make a 'on-duty' sort of thing, so that if the person is not actively looking at the page, they will get emailed with whatever the contents of the form is. The page will contain a table of all the entered form results.
You could update the database by creating a record with a timestamp every time the user refreshes the page. Then, you can have a PHP worker that looks regularely in the database if the timestamp is older than 30 seconds, and starts the e-mail.
I can't provide php solution for the server-side part of the job. But basically you need to set up javascript timer (eg. jquery timeout) and after 30seconds do the ajax call that will do what you want on the server (save something to db, send email and so on).
I hope I got your point and my advice will help you somehow.
maybe use an AJAX call every 30 secs based on the setTimeout javascript function?
http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_timing.asp
function timedCount()
{
# ajax call
t=setTimeout("timedCount()",30000);
}
I would suggest using javascript like this:
window.setTimeout("location.reload(true);", 3000);
This is of course if you desperately need to reload, but the user will obviously be mad that you reload the window for him.

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