I run a php script game site, and there's a section of it where a player can distribute his 'skill points' in 'Attack', 'Defence', or 'Stamina'.
At the moment, it's just a basic HTML/PHP form with a + next to each stat, so if the user had 100 points and wanted to put them all into ATTACK, he'd have to click (and pageload) 100 times. Obviously that's silly.
I want to be able to make it so the player can distribute them (without page reloads), then finally click SUBMIT once he's happy with it.
Could anyone point me in the direction of what I need to do this? Is it some ajax or javascript? I suppose I could do form fields and clicking the PLUS would increment each field..
It sounds like you need an onclick() to call a javascript function for the plus button, that increments the value in javascript, updates on the page and checks that the user has distributed the points correctly (i.e. distributed 100 points or under in your example) and then have another button at the bottom of your points distribution that sends the data to a PHP page that handles the storage of the values.
If you wanted you could then use ajax to send that data to the PHP page without having to reload the page. I've found the W3schools site adequate for teaching basic ajax usage: http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/default.asp
(But remember to check the user input on the server side as well, don't trust user input!)
Related
I plan to make this commenting system where comments can be posted and updated without refreshing the page ( you can see this on youtube)
Posting comments is understandable ( post to php page from javascript and run SQL query on server side to import it, than return the comment and fetch in html )
Updating is the part I don't understand. How can I refresh the page automatically on certain intervals and add comments? Isn't that going to be a mess when multiple users try to comment at the same time?
I was wondering if anyone can recommend a good way ( just like word of advice ) to achieve this and save me some time
The most common way is to call setTimeout or setInterval in javascript to poll every 5-25 seconds. Basically, you store the idea of the last comment you received on the javascript side, then you call a function that sends this id to a remote server. If there are newer messages than this id, you send all of them back via XML or JSON (usually json is easier to deal with on the javascript side, especially if you use a framework like jQuery).
You can use "Long Polling". Basically it is a technique in which you open an Ajax connection and the server doesn't close until it has some response to send. The client upon receiving this response requests a new connection and waits again for a response.
You can check a tutorial: Simple Long Polling Example with JavaScript and jQuery.
Another really good way would be using a subscribe/publish service.
I'm using PubNub at the moment for Notifications, Comments ect..
I once used a simple technique (no timer used, no total refresh) with a flaw that it shows only new comments, but not edit and delete by others done to existing displayed comments. Be mindful that refreshing the whole comments panel may be unfeasible if you allow "expand / collapse / view more" comments. My simple technique is to have (i) a hidden input element to store the index/primarykey of the last comment displayed (ii) several uniquely identified divs to hold existing displayed comments and ajax refresh or html dom manipulation only that div when actions are performed on it (iii) a div to hold a view more comments button whereby the button will only be displayed if there are more comments to view.
Therefore, whenever a new comment is posted, "the view more comments panel with a button" will be refreshed saying view [X + (# recent new comments by others) + (# your new comment)] comments. Upon clicking the button, it will display 3 more new comments along with "view Y more comments" button.
I am using php, html, css to create a bingo game (There will be nxn boxes. It will be filled in random order for 2 players. Players has to select numbers one by one. One who fills up rows or columns or diagonals five times wins the game).
I created player1.php and player2.php. I am having 9 boxes and populating it from databases. If user clicks a button I'll update the corresponding values as 0 so that when page loads I'll disable the button if the text is 0.
If player1 clicks a button in player1.php, it should reflect in player2.php. How can I do that? Is that possible by reloading page every second? Is it good to do that?
As short answer: no it is not.
Pure PHP is not the most suited for interactive game like that but there are few things you can do.
You could use javascript with Ajax to do this. Let's say you have X players (each using playerX.php although i would put it into player.php and determine each player by GET parameter or something). When one of the player clicks a link, it goes a server-side script, in PHP (possibly using Ajax if you want), that updates your database.
Now the tricky, each player page 'asks' the server every certain amount of time for the state of the game, and updates the page accordingly. The easiest way to do this is create a script (lets call it state.php) that will output data from your database using JSON. You can read the request using ajax and update your page using javascript.
I suggest you read about jQuery and Ajax (which can be also used with jQuery).
If you want to avoid having to refresh the page each time, learning javascript and ajax is your best bet.
i have a website that uses a number of containers (div's). In this scenario, we have three boxes down the left side and one bigger box on the right of these boxes. The bigger box on the right is the only thing that changes when a link is pressed, this is done with Javascript.
SO i have the index which is the main layout of the website and i also have the "pages" of the site, so when a link is pressed the main box (on the right) loads the new data.
On one of my pages i want to collect data and then run it through a PHP script that is in the head of the file, but when i click the button i realise it refreshes the whole page and it doesn't run the script on the page with the form.
Anyone had a problem like this, or know of something i could do to work around it?
I'm not really sure what code would be useful for helping me but if you need something just ask.
Thanks for the help
Since you are loading all your content via JS already, you could just POST the form data via AJAX to a PHP script to process, then read the output and either provide an error message or remove the form from the page and show your success message.
How to approach your AJAX call is dependant on what you've used as a basis for the rest of your JS.
Personally I like to use the JQuery library, as it makes AJAX calls (and much more) very simple.
How about you make the page design able to do it. Have the backend be able to spit out the state of the page when it posted.
Or use Ajax to post the data back and set the new state like you do already.
I want to put Thumbs up/Thumbs down buttons on my website.
There will be quite a few of them displayed at once, so I don't want to have to do a POST and reload the page every time the user clicks on one.
I thought of using re-skinned radio buttons to choose Thumbs up/Thumbs down, but that would require the user to click a submit button.
So how do I do this? I am open to using JavaScript or some other form of Client-Side scripting, so long as it is built in to most/all web browsers.
Thanks!
YM
I would take a look at using jQuery, http://jquery.com/ It is a WIDELY used library and there is tons of support for it both here and # jQuery's website.
You could easily assign all those thumbs to do an ajax post to a save page with the correct id and the user would not know the difference
You're definitely going to need to use JavaScript on this. Well, there are other client-side languages that could technically do the job (ActionScript, for example), but JavaScript is definitely the best way to go.
Look into AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML). This is just a buzzwordy way of saying use the XMLHttpRequest() object to make page requests with JavaScript without reloading the page. Here's a good tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/default.asp . Note that, despite the word "XML" being in the title, you don't have to use XML at all, and in many cases you won't.
What you'll basically do is this:
Have your thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons linked to a JavaScript function (passing in whether it's a like or dislike via a function argument).
In that function, send a request to another page you create (a PHP script) which records the like/dislike. Optionally, you can have the PHP script echo out the new vote totals.
(optional) If you decided to have your PHP script output the new results, you can read that into JavaScript. You'll get the exact text of the PHP script's page output, so plan ahead according to that -- you can have the PHP script output the new vote totals in a user-friendly way and then just have your JavaScript replace a particular div with that output, for example.
Why use AJAX for dynamic web pages when you can do it only with php?
The main reason to bother with AJAX is User Experience (UX).
Now AJAX won't necessarily improve UX in every single instance so in a lot of places sticking with pure PHP is perfectly okay.
But imagine the case where you have a text field on the site and a link to vote on something. Kinda like this site. When you add AJAX your users won't loose the text they entered in the textfield when they decide to vote on the link! How incredibly useful!
So if you care about your user's experience it is a good idea to use AJAX in situations like that.
PHP creates and outputs the Content to the Client Browser as it's a Server-Side Language and that's what it was built for, so on a request your code will access database, files etc. and then output the constructed html/text to the client.
Ajax just gives the User a more Desktop like feel. For example deleting a record and instead of the entire page reloading just letting the one element disappear from say a list and letting the server know that the record is to be deleted. But Remember to let the User know when you are busy sending data to the server (With a progress bar in .gif format for example). As lot's of user feel that if nothing happens on the screen to notify them, that the application is frozen which means they will either reload the page or just try to click the button again.
But you will need to provide some sort of compatibility with browsers that have Javascript disable and thus cannot use your AJAX functions, just something to keep in mind.
AJAX stands for Asynchronus Javascript and XML, meaning that a page can get new data, without having to reload a page.
PHP cannot send data without reloading the whole page. A user has to press a button, to send data.
An example of AJAX is for example google suggestions or the tag suggestions on this website.