Stats Image

Beginner

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Friday, August 28th 2009, 12:05am

Basically all the plugin would do would make a script to show a PNG/JPG/GIF image with the forum stats on it, for example it shows:
My forum name
195 Members - 17 threads - 1050 posts (average 5.15 posts per day)
Newest member: membernamehere
This would create an image which would be updated in real time (each time the image is used it will update with new stats) and show the forum stats, for us to use, for example, at forum signatures and other places.
I hope someone can make this plugin so I can share my forum stats on other forums!

Thanks

Go to the top of the page

dtdesign

Community Team

Posts: 1,610

Location: Düsseldorf

Occupation: Informatikstudent

2

Friday, August 28th 2009, 12:07am

Just a small hint, it should fit to refresh image using a cronjob. 5-10 minutes should be way enough and don't worry, since wcf cronjobs are only executed once someone visits the board itself: no visitor, no possible change so it doesn't matter anyway.

<warlord_7> Twitter is eine typische Erscheinung der Generation ADS & SMS. Für einen Brief zu faul, für einen kompletten Satz zu dumm und für korrekte Grammatik zu cool.

Go to the top of the page

jimmie32

Beginner

Posts: 8

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

3

Friday, August 28th 2009, 12:09am

Probably making the image to fetch the stats directly from where WCF pulls it up from?

Go to the top of the page

dtdesign

Community Team

Posts: 1,610

Location: Düsseldorf

Occupation: Informatikstudent

4

Friday, August 28th 2009, 12:12am

That's not the point, re-creating the image upon every request leads to a possible denial of service.

<warlord_7> Twitter is eine typische Erscheinung der Generation ADS & SMS. Für einen Brief zu faul, für einen kompletten Satz zu dumm und für korrekte Grammatik zu cool.

Go to the top of the page

jimmie32

Beginner

Posts: 8

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

5

Friday, August 28th 2009, 12:16am

So I've got an idea:

1. User Loads this Image
Backend:
1.1: Script checks if there is a CACHED version of the image
1.1.1: If yes, go to step 1.1.1.1:
1.1.1.1: If the cached image is more than 15 minutes old, re generate the image. Go to Step 2. If not, go to step 3.
1.1.2: If no, go to Step 2
2. Generate the image
2.1: Get the stats from WCF and generate the image (according to possible configuration, if any)
2.2: Generate the image and save it in Cache. Go to step 3.
Frontend:
3. Output the image.

Go to the top of the page

dtdesign

Community Team

Posts: 1,610

Location: Düsseldorf

Occupation: Informatikstudent

6

Friday, August 28th 2009, 12:22am

Way to complex and in-effective

A WCF cronjob is called every X minutes, gathering all neccessary data and re-creating the image. Since the image will have a static name, the link will not become invalid. Thus if the cronjob is called every 5 minutes, the script will re-create the image maximal 288 times per day. Imho is it enough to call it every 15 minutes, reducing total calls below 100 times per day. In reality the board is not visited all the time, so the total amount of cronjob calls is reduced again which does not affect the stats: no user online, no possible change.

This way only the image itself without any additional script is called all the time, saving an enormous amount of performance.

<warlord_7> Twitter is eine typische Erscheinung der Generation ADS & SMS. Für einen Brief zu faul, für einen kompletten Satz zu dumm und für korrekte Grammatik zu cool.

Go to the top of the page

jimmie32

Beginner

Posts: 8

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

7

Friday, August 28th 2009, 12:25am

So the problem now is: Who will create the plugin? I have some PHP/MySQL experience, but I will have to learn a bit about WCF first... mmm... I guess I'll try making it and probably someone will finish it before I do