[ale] What technology is used on chat web pages?

[John Marasco]

You can set a client script timer that polls the server for changes and pulls those changes down for inclusion in the current page via DHTML.  There would be no "flicker" and no impact on current user entry.  I don't know how "standard" the technology is but it works in an MS environment using ASP server code.  Seems like you could substitute a CGI server page to get the same effect.  IIRC, I used the setTimeout function to poll the server and then the load method from the XML object.  Parse the returned XML (from your CGI page) to get the relevant text (in your Javascript function) and then use DHTML to display that text in the appropriate client browser object (like a text box).  You don't need to refresh a web page to refresh the data on the page.  That's the "easy way" not the only way.

I don't believe there is any way to push from the server to the client if that is the original message.  The client must always poll for the change (pull).  If it were possible to push from the server then the "client" web page would have to act as the "server" essentially functioning as an ISAPI (is this right in Apache) filter?


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