Live Module v.0.3

[Nick]

Live v.0.3

Created by: Nick Ramsay (longcountdown)
Created on: 2009/01/09
Requires: None

Updated to v.0.3 on January 16th 2009

Description
A one-page alternative to the existing Live pages.

Features

• Filter activity to show all, top stories, new stories, votes or comments
• View comments by hovering over the comment icon
• View news summaries by hovering over the "new" and "top" icons
• See all voters by hovering over the vote icon
• Avatars included in comments and User column
• Times formatted after 24 hours to show the date instead of ">25 hours"
• Dedicated css and language files
• Strips BBCode from comments
• Admin page for setting the number of items to display and the refresh rate
• Removes the need for Live-related template files

See it in action here!

Instructions

For testing purposes only, just upload, enable and visit the Live page at yoursite.com/module.php?module=live

Otherwise:
1. In Admin > Configure > Live, set "Enable live" to false. This will remove the old "Live" link from your navigation bar.
2. Upload the "live" folder to your modules folder and enable it in Admin > Module Management.
3. The live nodule has its own Admin page, set "Items to show" and "How often to refresh" as desired.
4. To put a new "Live" link in your navigation bar, either add this module hook to header.tpl in your templates folder:

Code:

{checkActionsTpl location=tpl_sidebar_logged_out_just_below_profile"}   

or add a manual link like this:

Code:

<a href='{$my_base_url}{$my_pligg_base}/module.php?module=live'>Live</a>

Known Issues

• Shows avatars even when avatars are disabled in Admin.
• Use of live_js.tpl after the closing HTML tag (as per this post).
  
• There is a delay and no "Loading..." indicator before the Live content appears.
• Filtering doesn't force a refresh.

If you can help out with these issues, please do so!

Revision History
v0.3 2009/01/16 LongCountdown - Better tooltips, Admin page and general tidying up of code.
v0.2 2009/01/13 LongCountdown - Fixes repeated content and "blinking" animation issue.
v0.1 2009/01/09 LongCountdown - First version, but based heavily on the original Live pages.

[catchpen]

That's really nice. You should call it "alive" since it has a pulse  .

[davemackey]

Very impressive.
Dave.

[nothingman]

Installed instantly!  As a suggestion, could there be a way to wrap the (tooltip) text? If you notice, some of the comments 'cross-over' to the sidebar. Nevertheless, this is great.

[nothingman]

LCD, I've noticed that in the default Live page, the page used to blink (orange blink) ONLY when an activity happened. However, in this module, the page blinks based on the number of times the refresh rate is set to  I've set this to 5 seconds and it can be sore to the eyes. Can this 'blinking' be set to the way it happens in the default Live page (i.e the page blinks only when an activity happens)? 

[Nick]

Yeah, this is going to need some serious work. The reason it's "blinking" is because it's treating all the content as new and reloading it each time. This is a new bug that started when I fixed an old bug . The overlap thing in your screenshot only happens with Flash content. I think I'll have to scrap the tooltips anyway because they don't disappear in Opera.

I'll get all this stuff fixed eventually. Thanks for your feedback.

[nothingman]

I still find the tool tip quite cool. Other than that, I've removed the sidebar on the Live page, no point of it being there when the person is on the live page anyways
Really wish this blinking thingy could be done away with

[Nick]

Live Module updated to v.0.2. This version is an important bug fix to reduce MySQL queries by 99%. Yes, v.0.1 was that bad! 

Changes:
- Only new items are loaded each time, fixing the "blinking" animation problem mentioned above.
- No more repeated items, and when you filter the items, previous items are replaced instead of being pushed down.
- New items animation ends with transparency instead of white so it looks okay on pages with non-white backgrounds.
- The Opera tooltip glitch has magically healed itself.

[redwine]

Installed instantly!  As a suggestion, could there be a way to wrap the (tooltip) text? If you notice, some of the comments 'cross-over' to the sidebar. Nevertheless, this is great.

To control the width of the tooltip, open /live/js/wz_tooltip.js and:

edit line 103:

Code:

config. Width = 0

Change to:

Code:

config. Width = -440

Note that the more negative you go, the wider the tooltip is (I.e. -440 is wider than -240)

[redwine]

LCD, that is an impressive and beautiful work. I second catchpen, it is "ALIVE"!

Keep up the excellent work!

[Nick]

LCD, that is an impressive and beautiful work. I second catchpen, it is "ALIVE"! Keep up the excellent work!

Thanks very much!  Thanks also for hunting down that width variable. I tried half a dozen different tooltip scripts and the wz_tooltip[/url] one was by far the most browser friendly. It's also incredibly customizable, but you've got to read all about it and then edit the parameters for all the links in the live_js.tpl file to really make it shine. Perhaps one day I'll make an Admin page with a choice of settings - especially "Items to show" and "How often to refresh" so we can completely separate Live from the core.

[catchpen]

Got it going on my site too thanks LCD. Wow nothingman asked about this idea a week ago and here it is.  Thumbs up!

[nothingman]

Got it redwine, thanks a ton! 

To control the width of the tooltip, open /live/js/wz_tooltip.js and:

edit line 103:

Code:

config. Width = 0

Change to:

Code:

config. Width = -440

Note that the more negative you go, the wider the tooltip is (I.e. -440 is wider than -240)

[nothingman]

Thanks LCD...you're great!

Live Module updated to v.0.2. This version is an important bug fix to reduce MySQL queries by 99%. Yes, v.0.1 was that bad! 

Changes:
- Only new items are loaded each time, fixing the "blinking" animation problem mentioned above.
- No more repeated items, and when you filter the items, previous items are replaced instead of being pushed down.
- New items animation ends with transparency instead of white so it looks okay on pages with non-white backgrounds.
- The Opera tooltip glitch has magically healed itself.

[Nick]

Live Module updated to v.0.3. See the demo linked to from the first post in this thread.

Changes:
- Dedicated admin page for setting the number of items to show and the refresh rate
- View news summaries by hovering over the "new" and "top" icons
- See all voters by hovering over the vote icon
- Prettier tooltips (width set as per redwine's instructions above)
- Code tidied up and tooltip styling moved out of individual links and into the configuration section of /live/js/wz_tooltip.js