Show "X is typing a reply"

TheBigK

Well-known member
Currently XenForo tells us whether others have posted a response while we're composing our reply. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a little window above the quick reply box that tells us who all / is typing a response currently? Many messengers do this and I think it's quite awesome.
 
Upvote 76
Time to resurrect this suggestion? There are already async calls to save drafts every x seconds. You could easily expose this data to show who is currently "replying" based on their latest activity being viewing that thread and having a saved draft with last x seconds. Should be trivial to add. Also would be cool to have a "currently viewing this thread" (e.g. list of avatars at top or sidebar widget)" based on current activity.
 
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I don't like this idea. It's stalkerish. I want to compose my reply in peace instead of having the pressure of people watching their screens while I'm producing a piece of writing.
 
I don't like this idea. It's stalkerish. I want to compose my reply in peace instead of having the pressure of people watching their screens while I'm producing a piece of writing.
it good to avoid replying to something when someone is already saying the same thing tho....or if the OP is replying sometimes it can be good to wait and see what they added before giving a lengthy reply...

we used an addon for this with vbulletin, it would be nice to replace back if it wasnt too server intensive...
 
I agree with this suggestion...

Showing “who is typing” above the editor is 100% a required feature to get with the times of modernization.

In example:

IMG_3956.webp
 
It doesn’t require it but it is vastly encouraged. Trouble is, running something with web sockets on average hosting… ain’t a recipe for a good time.
Out of curiosity, would these Webhosting specs be enough for a web socket feature? We are currently paying $9USD a month for the "Pro" package. Have had no issues... but maybe I am overlooking the host requirements for "average hosting". https://www.nfoservers.com/order-webhosting.php

1736954405206.webp
 
For web sockets? No.

You either run something like Node (which I don’t see mentioned there), or something like Ratchet (which I strongly doubt your hosting plan would be happy about, it’s essentially a super-long-lived PHP script). Web sockets are just not how PHP works - PHP is all about “receive a request, respond, close the connection” rather than leaving the connection open. I’m not quite clear what they’re calling a simultaneous connection but if that’s 200 concurrent connections, you instantly limit your site - because every active user would hold one of those connections open with a web socket, meaning every other request would have to share what’s left.

Or you don’t use web sockets and have every user on the site phone home every couple of seconds. (XF does some element of this for drafts, but not nearly at the frequency that makes sense) Which means an instant scaling of traffic just to get this indicator.
 
Or you don’t use web sockets and have every user on the site phone home every couple of seconds. (XF does some element of this for drafts, but not nearly at the frequency that makes sense) Which means an instant scaling of traffic just to get this indicator.
This is what I did on vbulletin on a big board with millions of readers. But I restricted live functionality like this and similar things (Who is currently viewing this page, live loading, live stats, etc) to PREMIUM members. This way the functionality could be served to a limited number of users without bringing the server down. It was also a nice way to bring in money, because live functionality greatly enhance the experience.
It did needed to be coded really well, because otherwise it caused major performance issues. Many developers were not able to deliver a good implementation that would not bring the server down. But thankfully one did.

I'd be happy with either method. Websockets or not.
 

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