Posted by "bruce" on 09/14/05 16:16

ben...

i understand what you've stated, but i was under the impression that a
number of sites (etrade, etc...) can/do track who is/is not logged into
their sites.. and not just by some crude 'timeout' function...

i might be wrong, but it was my understanding that those kinds of sites have
the ability to more or less know when someone kills the browser session, and
is no longer on the system. these kinds of sites also ustilize some form of
a 'timeout' process as well for users who simply have browser sessions that
are inactive...

by your statements, you're pretty much saying that the only approach one has
to this issue is to utilize some sort of timeout function, and if you don't
detect user activity after your timeout, then mark the user as no longer
being active, and proceed accordingly. this apporach doesn't allow an app to
immediately know when a user has killed the browser.

so, the question might be, how does one detect when a user has killed a
session/left your app?

-bruce



-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Holt [mailto:ben@emediastudios.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 11:05 PM
To: bedouglas@earthlink.net
Cc: php-general@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP] trying to figure out the best/efficient way to tell
whoisloggedinto a site..


bruce wrote:

>ben...
>
>your statements/approach is pretty much what i've been thinking of.
however,
>with regards to the forums/cms apps.. i've yet to find one that actually
>keeps a track of the logged in users, that works when the user kills the
>browser..
>
>the ones that i've seen, that allow an admin to see who's online, appear to
>fail when i've killed the test user. the apps still show the killed user as
>being online...
>
>hence my isuue!
>
>
Bruce, what I have been trying to explain is that this _can_not_ be
overcome. The web is stateless. Connections between server and client
last only long enough for a file to be requested and sent, once that has
happened the server and client are no longer connected and have no
knowledge of each other. _No_ server-side program will be able to tell
you when a user closes their browser or goes to another web site. HTTP
simply doesn't provide what you are looking for.

- Ben

--
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php

[Back to original message]