Digital Point Spy

[digitalpoint]

About
This is a realtime Spy for realtime monitoring of things going on within your forum.

Installation

• Put the contents of the library directory into your XenForo library directory.
• Install the addon-dpSpy.xml file in your Admin Control Panel -> Install Add-on option.

There isn't a whole lot to explain... it's a XenForo version of this: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/spy.php

P.S. - since I don't have a live XenForo site myself yet, I can't really give any good real usage screenshots... if someone wants to give me a link to where you have it installed so I can grab a screenshot for this thread, it would be useful.

 

[Paul B]

Nice work.

Will this increase server load and/or queries a significant amount?

Is it safe to install on a shared server?

 

[digitalpoint]

It shouldn't... it does one relatively simple query every 5 seconds to feed in anything new. I've had over 1,000 people watching the spy at the same time at digitalpoint.com without any issues when we were doing a big event.

In realworld use, it's rare any more than 1 or 2 people are actively watching it anyway...

 

[mrGTB]

Why can't I download this? It says "error - file cannot be located on the server".

 

[digitalpoint]

Hmmmm... not sure... maybe reload the page? I just tried it and it works for me.

 

[Paul B]

Downloaded fine for me.

However, it doesn't seem to work on my local installation.
I am logged in with two different accounts in two different browsers and nothing is appearing in either.

 

[Trekkan]

Download worked ok for me.

Thanks DigitalPoint!

 

[mrGTB]

Hmm, that was odd. It's let me download it now after copying URL, closing browser and reloading it again pointing to this page. Must have been my "ABP" FireFox add-on doing it because it was enabled then.

Most likely was, as I've noticed it also stop the quick pop-up editor from appearing as well. Even though I've not blocked it or anything.

 

[digitalpoint]

Downloaded fine for me.

However, it doesn't seem to work on my local installation.
I am logged in with two different accounts in two different browsers and nothing is appearing in either.

It's only going to show new stuff happening from the point you install it...

 

[James]

Any chance you can add a timestamp into it somewhere? Maybe switch Who/Where to Who/Where/When and use XenForo's relative timestamps to display when it was done?

 

[digitalpoint]

I thought about adding the timestamp, but I think it's just clutter to be honest... since it's not searchable or filterable or anything, everything happening more or less is happening NOW... which is the whole point of it (what's happening now).

The only exception to that would be very small boards that don't have much activity... and even for those, adding a timestamp to everything is only going to make their forum look unused to anyone actually using the Spy.

 

[Paul B]

It's only going to show new stuff happening from the point you install it...

I was aware of that...

I installed it and made several test posts from each account.

The page in both browsers didn't update.

 

[James]

I agree, just that when I was looking at the Digital Point version, I noticed it seems to pre-load X things that happened before I loaded the page (I saw New User Registration at least 3 times on refresh) so it'd be nice to be able to look at a timestamp and know that it's the same user I just saw register about a minute ago!

 

[digitalpoint]

I was aware of that...

I installed it and made several test posts from each account.

The page in both browsers didn't update.

Hmmmm... that doesn't sounds good... did anything get populated in the dp_spy table?

I agree, just that when I was looking at the Digital Point version, I noticed it seems to pre-load X things that happened before I loaded the page (I saw New User Registration at least 3 times on refresh) so it'd be nice to be able to look at a timestamp and know that it's the same user I just saw register about a minute ago!

It does preload the 25 latest actions, but those are still more or less "now". On digitalpoint.com, 25 actions is probably about 1 minute worth of activity, so...

 

[Paul B]

Yes, that all looks fine.

 

[digitalpoint]

Do you happen to have a URL I could take a look at? Logging the events is definitely a good sign... only thing I can think of is some sort of JS error when doing the AJAX call.

 

[Paul B]

Unfortunately it's a local installation using XAMPP.

I'll see if I can catch anything in Firebug.

 

[James]

It is a JS error: Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (Not Found)

It's trying to find spyfeed&last=0&r=0.05421181186102331

 

[Paul B]

Yup, just about to post that.

 

[James]

BTW you should probably update your post with something like "Install the add-on then navigate to http://www.yourdomain.com/<xfroot>/spy to see the add-on"

Also what's the deal with the "XenForo Spy by Digital Point"? Is it removable or does it have to remain intact? (I have no plans to remove it, just figured it should be answered)