how do you do that "You are 1 of - active users." off of www.gamedev.net/gamedev.asp ?!??!?!?

The server has a list of people who are connected to it.

Good answer, firahs

If you code it, they will come...

Commander M
http://commanderm.8m.com
cmndrm@commanderm.8m.com

not-so-smart question, smart answer

- pouya

Not to be offensive, but I don''t think there was nothing smart about that. I''m not saying firahs is stupid because he''s not.(helped me with collisions)

In reality, they can''t know how many people are connected to the web site, because of the stateless nature of the web. But they can give a rough estimate, and like you''re gonna know anyway

There''s a cookie set in your browser, which is why the login thing on the screen is already pre-filled. Likely a cookie even if you haven''t become a member of the message board yet. If someone hits up the page they can add you to their list of active users and update their count. Obviously if you''re already in this list (or hit up the page recently) the count doesn''t change: hence the reason for a cookie, to identify unique clients.

The trouble is, how do they know when you leave? They don''t. But chances are, if you haven''t loaded up any page in the last 20 minutes (as an example), you''re no longer active... so drop you from the list, decrease the count.

I''m just theorizing of course. Would be interested to here what the web guy for gamedev.net has to say.

- webguy n8


nathany.com