Topic: Question about the Shout Box refresh and loading

[xrunner]

Hello,

I'm running SMF 2.0 RC5 (which isn't an option for your version selection when you sign up here) and I have the latest SP - 2.3.3

It looks like the Shout Box that comes with Simple Portal is what I need, but I have a question first before I start using it. I wanted a SB that auto-refreshed, and this one can be made to do that. But I know it can put an additional load on the server. What I want to know is how the additional load manifests itself. I would assume it is higher the faster the refresh rate is set. But what about users? Is it a load per user, or is it just a refresh for all users once every x seconds? In other words does it matter how many users there are (I don't have that many).

I've had an older SB on the 1.1. series of SMF that refreshed itself and it didn't seem to bother my hosting Co. I just want a feel for how the loading works and really, how much of an issue it really is.

Thanks.

[xrunner]

Doesn't anyone ave any experience or knowledge of this?

[AngelinaBelle]

The answer is: it depends on how many users are viewing a page with the shoutbox on it.
And here is why:
The autorefresh feature causes is a javascript feature. Every so many seconds, the user's browser makes a request for the shouts, and uses javascript to show those shouts in the shoutbox.
This means that, if you have 100 users, each one refreshing every 60 seconds, you are getting 100 shoutbox refresh requests every minute.

[xrunner]

This means that, if you have 100 users, each one refreshing every 60 seconds, you are getting 100 shoutbox refresh requests every minute.

Thanks for responding.

But, those same users, if there was no shout box, could create 100 refreshes every 60 seconds (or more often) just by looking through the forum or refreshing the pages manually, couldn't they? In other words, the refresh initiated by the shout box isn't any "worse" for the server than manual page refreshes by users, is it?

Also, is the refresh for the shout box only working on the portal page? If the users go to the forum pages, they wouldn't have auto-shout-box refreshes would they?

Thanks in advance.

[AngelinaBelle]

I would not imagine that the shoutbox refresh would be any worse than the refresh for a long topic-and-reply page.
It is entirely up to you whether you wish to show the shoutbox on non-portal pages.
You can see that, right here at SimplePortal.net, the shoutbox shows up on this very page.
Generally, shoutbox refresh is set to much more often than 1 every 60 seconds. So, if you have a large number of users who keep multiple tabs open to your site, and the shoutbox on every one of those tabs refreshes ever second, whether the user is looking at it or not, you can see how you might start to have a problem.