UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Suggestions and Feedback The new online screen - question

Ok, I put in a counter for the number of registered and unregistered users into the online screen. Now here is my question. Currently it shows the total number of registered users online even if some are set to be invisible. So, it may say 6 registered users, but you might only see 3. Is this acceptable? Or do you think if users are set to invisible that they should not show up in the total count?

Edited by Scream on 5/18/00 09:51 AM.

I like the idea of knowing how many people are on the board at any given time, so I like it... []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]

Of course, it might be nice to say Visible Users: xx Invisible Users: yy or something like that...

matt

Ick, I was hoping nobody would suggest that[]/w3timages/icons/frown.gif[/]. The reason being I'd have to do multiple queries and loops to show how many were visible and invisible. So hopefully you will change your mind[]/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/].

Edited by Scream on 5/18/00 08:46 AM.

I don't see any problem with it showing the number including invisible users.

Muhammad Chishti
Creative dIRECTOR
[:white]http://www.imcuniverse.com

I would go against that one, I would rather it not have two counts for visible and invisible - let them wonder. []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]

Muhammad Chishti
Creative dIRECTOR
[:white]http://www.imcuniverse.com

hehe... no biggie... I can always be convinced if it's gonna hit performance!

matt

If they're invisible, don't count them. To Admin they are not really invisible anyway so in that case they should be included in the count.

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

I'll refer you to my reply to MattyJ[]/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]. Do you think this would be worth the extra query and loop it would take to achieve this? I mean I'll put it in if you think so, but I just figured I'd bring this up so everyone knows what it would take to add this.

Oops! Yes, of course. Leave it as is and forget I spoke. []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

Just a cosmetic thing... you might want to put the s in Users inside of parenthesis... ie, User(s) just to cover that rare instance when there's only one person skulking around! []/w3timages/icons/wink.gif[/]

matt

Good idea!

Scream,

the text lines "Registered users" and "Anonymous User" have to be language-dependent. But I'm sure you know it and have already planned that... []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]

Carsten

--
Carsten Müller, Hamburg (Germany)

Scream,

hmmm, I really like it how it is now.

But I think it should be possible to show that "invisible" count to clear why there's a difference between the total number and the shown lines.

- In my case (I don't allow the users to be invisible) it doesn't matter

- In high-traffic forums it doesn't matter as well (there are so many lines that nobody would count them to see the difference between the number shown above and the lines count)

But

- in low-traffic forums I'm sure it would confuse the users who read the online.pl screen. The total says 6 and there are only 4 lines. I'm sure this would generate lots of requests by the users who wants to now why this happens....

Just my thoughts.

Best way would be to have the number count query for invisible users as an option. But I don't know if that's worth the work.....

So I can live with that solution you have now (and I really love it []/w3timages/icons/smile.gif[/]), but in some cases it might not be the best solution.

Carsten


--
Carsten Müller, Hamburg (Germany)

You could always put in "approximately" and maybe a brief explanation in the FAQ.

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

I agree with Carsten on this. It doesn't matter in the two instances he mentions, but otherwise I'm sure you would get emails from people telling you there is something wrong with your program because the numbers don't match.
Implemented as is would be ok, I would probably just hack out the "x Registered User(s)." text on my board, leaving the "x Anonymous User(s)." in as they can't be invisible, and this would eliminate any confusion.

Darren.
http://www.bullpen.com.au

I think just saying:

x User(s) - (Including Invisible users)

will do fine.

In my opinion I think users don't like to feel being alone, so I
would like to include the number of invisible users.

Either that, or what I was thinking was changing the text at the top of the Online screen to state why the numbers might not add up. I think as long as it is somewhat explained they should understand.

I think it will be fine if you reword the sentence : Something like this will be ok :

There are 6 people online at this time. Below is a list of members who choose to be visible..

I agree... Can't you do a query and get more than one column back and use that to determine who's invisible? (I haven't spent time on the layout of the DB so pardon my ignorance)

also on online.pl... put the icq logo in its own column.. it would look better.


Sebastien.

[:red]Sebastien Lahtinen
[i][:white]www.chatsplat.com
[][email protected][/]

If you put the ICQ logo *after* the name instead of in front, it doesn't spoil the balance. (I have 'ICQ', 'PM this User' and 'Language' flags all there and they look OK.)

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

it looks funny though.. i'd rather see it as a column before or at the end...


seb


[:red]Sebastien Lahtinen
[i][:white]www.chatsplat.com
[][email protected][/]

Actually, I experimented with separate columns both in front and behind and nothing looked as pleasing as simply putting them after the name in the first column.

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]

I wouldn't even think about it....

It's preference
and it can be hacked..

seb

[:red]Sebastien Lahtinen
[i][:white]www.chatsplat.com
[][email protected][/]

Exactly. And very easily.

[]http://www.amdragon.com/images/eileensig.gif[/]