APUG "Spy", view new content in real time with our spy tool..

[Sean]

Hi All,

This tool seems to work well. Since APUG has upwards of 700+ posts per day you can now watch new content appear in real time on the spy page. I believe the tool populates recent 10 or so posts/threads then adds to the list in real time. To access the page click the "Spy" link in the forum sub navigation as shown below:

The spy will be more entertaining during peak hours of course.. I have not fully been able to test it so if you have any major problems just let me know.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[Ian Grant]

So it's effectively an RSS feed of the site then.

Can you do the same for HybridPhoto & vice versa ?

Ian

 

[Sean]

So it's effectively an RSS feed of the site then.

Can you do teh same for HybridPhoto & vice versa ?

Ian

Similar to a rss feed. Once hybrid is upgraded it will have everything APUG has.

 

[M.A.Longmore]

Similar to a rss feed. Once hybrid is upgraded it will have everything APUG has.

.
Thank You Master !
An Interesting Feature.

 

[rrankin]

Makes me dizzy...

Seems to me calling it 'spy' is a little creepy. Why not 'live feed' or something?

Cheers, Richard

 

[Sirius Glass]

Is this going to be "The Spy That Loved Me"?

Steve

 

[5stringdeath]

All I see is:

Sirius Glass
Sirius Glass
Sirius Glass
Sirius Glass
Sirius Glass
Sirius Glass
Sirius Glass
Sirius Glass


over and over

 

[jamesgignac]

Heh, nice, I just checked it out - and yeah, I have the same issue - Sirius Glass all over the place.

But kudos, a neat feature indeed - now when I'm at a cafe the constantly scrolling text will hopefully attract some eyes...maybe I'll hook up a projector and broadcast it in Tienanmen Square...if there are any film buffs who can read English it should draw them into the fold...but that's not too likely around here.

Overall: nice

 

[Toffle]

Mwahahaha...

 

[fotch]

I know I am getting mentally slow, however, I like new gadgets. :wizard:

However, just what good is this new tool? :confused:

All I see are post coming in like a clock second hand ticking away. What purpose?

Please, take it easy on an older guy.

 

[Marco B]

Very cool Sean,

But I think it might be nice to have this option also as a user setting for the APUG homepage. E.g., give users the option to have a "static" list on APUG homepage, that needs to be refreshed hitting F5 like it is now, or have this dynamic "Spy" list displayed in the "Latest posts" box.

For that matter, it might be an option in APUG's sidebar as well...

Just some stupid ideas... no high priority

However, just what good is this new tool?
All I see are post coming in like a clock second hand ticking away. What purpose?

That only happens in the initialization phase of the list. After its filled up, it only shows posts coming in at a much more slow rate. Remember, Sean talked about +/- 700 posts per day appearing on APUG. That means just 1 post in 2 minutes. Not to bad.

APUG would need to grow to 4.8 million(!) members before we had 1 post every second!

I don't see that happening any time soon

Marco

 

[Marco B]

Another idea would be to have a ***single line*** "Spy" / Feed listing of the latest thread visible on all APUG Forum pages. E.g. as a replacement of the not so useful "Navigation path" directly visible below the APUG menu bar (The navigation path is the "Forum > APUG English forums > APUG.Org etc" link path).

Displaying real time the latest post there would be cool. A navigation path is not particularly useful in a "fixed" content sections webpage design like APUG's. Navigation path are most useful in webpages that change structure and content all the time, like news pages or so.

Or it might be positioned right of the "Reply to Thread" button at the top of forum threads, leaving the navigation path unaffected / where it is. There is a lot of spare unused space there...

Marco

 

[Sean]

Yeah it is confusing at first because it loads the last 25 recent. I'll see if I can cut that back to 5 or so. After that it will update in real time as they come in. It was mainly a mod I wanted for myself as I run dual displays I can now have a live feed of incoming posts on one screen. It helps me keep an eye on things. I figured might as well release it to all.

 

[lxdude]

It makes me dizzy, too. If it could smoothly scroll that would be fine, but I get a headache. Of course, like fotch I'm an older guy, so maybe I'm too feeble...

 

[Sean]

It makes me dizzy, too. If it could smoothly scroll that would be fine, but I get a headache. Of course, like fotch I'm an older guy, so maybe I'm too feeble...

It's just the initial loading, once that's done it stops getting dizzy. I'm trying to reduce the number of the initial loaded history..

 

[lxdude]

I saw it earlier on and tried it. Maybe there was a flurry of new posts right then, as it seemed to just go on and on. I know that smooth slow scrolling is difficult anyway. It would be nice if it could just splash the initial set of posts instead of loading them sequentially.
Anyway, thanks for all the great work you're doing on the site.

 

[eddym]

Oh no, now I'll never be able to "mark all threads as read"...!

 

[fotch]

Emmm, now I am waiting for the next post to load.

 

[Toffle]

It's a little bit like crack... you get hooked pretty easily... and now I'm being drawn into places where only the brave dare tread. (like the lounge and the soapbox.... and the Kodachrome thread... )

I'm off to the darkroom... the only sure antidote for APUG overload. (overdose?)

 

[hugopoon]

Very cool, thanks! Now I can process photos and keep an eye on what's going on at the same time…

 

[Curt]

Now that I've lost my supper what else can I do......

 

[Marco B]

Yeah it is confusing at first because it loads the last 25 recent. I'll see if I can cut that back to 5 or so. After that it will update in real time as they come in. It was mainly a mod I wanted for myself as I run dual displays I can now have a live feed of incoming posts on one screen. It helps me keep an eye on things. I figured might as well release it to all.

Sean, not many members have dual display. But you are right this tool could be very useful and nice to have, if it was visible all the time / continuously. It is less useful, if I need to open up a second TAB by clicking, because than I could just as well open "New Posts"...

As I suggested, showing such a live feed / spy listing might be most useful if displayed:

1) - In a single line above all "Search" views of Forums, or in the same manner above the normal "Forum" views, updating itself each time something new comes in.

2) - In the APUG sidebar. As the sidebar is a separate entity in APUG, it will be continuously visible if enabled.

3) - Maybe it would be an idea to have a truly floating and semi transparent "Spy/Live feed" box on APUG.

About the last option, I have a closable, minimizable and moveable DIV element on my homepage, that displays photo information in a semi-transparent box. It uses a very nifty free Javascript by Markus Bordihn (DynDiv - Dynamic Div):

Dead Link Removed

It would be extremely cool to have these spy feeds displayed in such a box, especially if it was a small unobtrusive one with small font, and thus capable to temporarily stack away somewhere on the APUG screen, for example on top of APUG topbar, to keep on the look-out for new threads.

See the attachments for an example on my website, the black semi-transparent box with photo info is the Dynamic Div... The box can be moved freely around, minimized and closed.

To try it out, go to for example the page below and click on the little "i" button in the upper right corner... Since it is a generic HTML Div element, it could contain pretty much anything you want:

http://www.boeringa.demon.nl/fort_vechten_2006/slides/DN3_80.html

Markus Bordihn has some more very cool Javascripts by the way, but I only implemented this one for now.

Anyway, even a single line continuously updated feed as per option 1) displayed somewhere visible while browsing the APUG forums, would be more easily implemented, yet be very useful and probably a bit handier than a separate "Spy page" as it is now.

Marco

 

[Marco B]

Mock-up of spy floating box

Hi Sean,

Just a quick "mock-up" of a possible floating box showing spy feeds... In this case a two-line example, but might be smaller, or use smaller font, or no transparency, it is customizable!

Marco

 

[Marco B]

Mock-up of spy single line feed in Forum views

Hi Sean,

And another mock-up idea for a single line feed integrated on the page rather than floating...

Marco