Shoutbox - Users viewing

[Bennett 🚀]

Like many top-of-the-line AJAX scripts, the PB shoutbox should show some sort of legend on who is online. Hopefully this could even just be a template variable that could be added.

Thanks in advance!

[RedBassett]

How does this differ from the existing list of online members in the info center?

[Stinky666]

Mar 4, 2013 13:01:22 GMT -8 RedBassett said:

How does this differ from the existing list of online members in the info center?

I actually started to reply to this earlier, basically saying that the argument would be exactly what RB said; those online, are classed as "viewing" it.

How would you even determine/class someone as being a viewer in the shoutbox? Would it be they have already posted a message and then it's those posted in the last 15mins, are classed as viewing/active in it? How could you tell the difference between someone simply viewing the main page (assuming your shoutbox is there) and someone viewing the shoutbox?

[Bennett 🚀]

Mar 4, 2013 13:05:58 GMT -8 Stinky666 said:

Mar 4, 2013 13:01:22 GMT -8 RedBassett said:

How does this differ from the existing list of online members in the info center?

I actually started to reply to this earlier, basically saying that the argument would be exactly what RB said; those online, are classed as "viewing" it.

How would you even determine/class someone as being a viewer in the shoutbox? Would it be they have already posted a message and then it's those posted in the last 15mins, are classed as viewing/active in it? How could you tell the difference between someone simply viewing the main page (assuming your shoutbox is there) and someone viewing the shoutbox?

Yes, if they've posted recently would be a good indicator.

[RedBassett]

Mar 4, 2013 13:05:58 GMT -8 Stinky666 said:

Mar 4, 2013 13:01:22 GMT -8 RedBassett said:

How does this differ from the existing list of online members in the info center?

I actually started to reply to this earlier, basically saying that the argument would be exactly what RB said; those online, are classed as "viewing" it.

How would you even determine/class someone as being a viewer in the shoutbox? Would it be they have already posted a message and then it's those posted in the last 15mins, are classed as viewing/active in it? How could you tell the difference between someone simply viewing the main page (assuming your shoutbox is there) and someone viewing the shoutbox?

While highly unreliable, you could check who has the shoutbox text input focused.

[Bennett 🚀]

Mar 4, 2013 13:09:00 GMT -8 RedBassett said:

Mar 4, 2013 13:05:58 GMT -8 Stinky666 said:

I actually started to reply to this earlier, basically saying that the argument would be exactly what RB said; those online, are classed as "viewing" it.

How would you even determine/class someone as being a viewer in the shoutbox? Would it be they have already posted a message and then it's those posted in the last 15mins, are classed as viewing/active in it? How could you tell the difference between someone simply viewing the main page (assuming your shoutbox is there) and someone viewing the shoutbox?

While highly unreliable, you could check who has the shoutbox text input focused.

Meh, that'd be kind of silly. Maybe if they have the shoutbox in the viewport (which is possible since PB uses sticky headers which is constantly checking positions of elements in the viewport)

[Ryan Roos]

There's already a list of who's online in the info center. There's no way to track who is using the shoutbox besides looking at who is using it. And there's your list right there, whoever has posted. There's even a time stamp telling you when they were active. Knowing who's using the shoutbox also has no bearing on it's use. It superfluous information. Any argument that you might not say something if you knew Hypothetical Steve was online can be countered by the fact that Hypothetical Steve could come online 5 seconds after you've said it. So your behavior regardless of who's using the shoutbox should not change. If you want to talk directly to someone there are a number of ways to do so, not limited to just the shoutbox. Including the PM system which allows you a more direct conversation. The forum's shoutbox is not necessarily the place to hold direct personal conversations, so the argument that you might want to shout at someone directly is not a strong one. The shoutbox is not a dedicated chat client.

Screen real estate is something that is very valuable when designing. And when we designed the shoutbox thee were lots of ideas that simply don't fit within the amount of space available. We have to balance functionality versus the amount of space the admin will lose on their page. Placing a list of members that will be the same as the one already on the page (or worse one that is different, how confusing) doesn't fit into our equation.

Thank you for the idea. But for now we will not be adding this. If you still want a list perhaps you could have a plugin created that duplicated the forum online list.

[Bennett 🚀]

Mar 4, 2013 13:32:32 GMT -8 Ryan Roos said:

There's already a list of who's online in the info center. There's no way to track who is using the shoutbox besides looking at who is using it. And there's your list right there, whoever has posted. There's even a time stamp telling you when they were active. Knowing who's using the shoutbox also has no bearing on it's use. It superfluous information. Any argument that you might not say something if you knew Hypothetical Steve was online can be countered by the fact that Hypothetical Steve could come online 5 seconds after you've said it. So your behavior regardless of who's using the shoutbox should not change. If you want to talk directly to someone there are a number of ways to do so, not limited to just the shoutbox. Including the PM system which allows you a more direct conversation. The forum's shoutbox is not necessarily the place to hold direct personal conversations, so the argument that you might want to shout at someone directly is not a strong one. The shoutbox is not a dedicated chat client.

Screen real estate is something that is very valuable when designing. And when we designed the shoutbox thee were lots of ideas that simply don't fit within the amount of space available. We have to balance functionality versus the amount of space the admin will lose on their page. Placing a list of members that will be the same as the one already on the page (or worse one that is different, how confusing) doesn't fit into our equation.

Thank you for the idea. But for now we will not be adding this. If you still want a list perhaps you could have a plugin created that duplicated the forum online list.

Why would it have to be part of the shoutbox physically? It could be a popup?

But anyways, I'm sure I'll be making myself a plugin that uses a key to keep data.