at the moment I've got a simple bit of code to display messages on a site. the page includes an iframe that self refreshes every 90 seconds, and the iframe displays the contents of a mysql table limited to the most recent (30) posts.
I've been reading up on ajax and it still confuses me, i've never got it working properly, and would like to know, for a small task like this, is it really worth it ?
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="90; URL=">
</head>
<body>
<?
$newsarray = array();
$sql = "SELECT * FROM `news` ORDER BY `date` DESC LIMIT 30";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
if(mysql_error()) { print mysql_error(); } else {
while($stuff = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{ array_push($newsarray, $stuff); }
foreach($newsarray as $newsstory) { ?>
<div class="newsstory">
<h2><? echo $newsstory['headline']; ?></h2>
<div><? echo $newsstory['story']; ?></div>
<label>By <? echo $newsstory['user']; ?> on <? echo $newsstory['date']; ?></label>
</div>
<? } ?>
</body>
If you want something that automatically updates every 30seconds then definitely Ajax is the way to go.
Some say (myself include) that you'd be insane not to use jQuery to do this.
It would be as simple as adding the jQuery library to your exsiting page and adding the following code:
<div id="result"></div>
<a href="javascript: updatestuff();">Manually Fetch Page</a>
<script language="javascript">
function updatestuff() {
$.ajax({
url: 'mypage.php', // The source
cache: false, // Make sure results are not cached
success: function (data) {
$('#result').html(data); // Update data once retrieved
}
});
}
setInterval("updatestuff()",90000); // In Milliseconds
</script>
This would run the function updatestuff() every 90 seconds which would update the <div> with content fetched from mypage.php.