Why is a green throbbing dot on my profile picture
Aw, and I was gonna give one of my explanationsActually it means you are online I think

Aw, and I was gonna give one of my explanations![]()
If it's in the center of the head of the dragon, it might have religious implications. FrankieWhy is a green throbbing dot on my profile picture
Go on. I'm interested. How does the server know if you're on-line?Aw, and I was gonna give one of my explanations![]()

When you interact (login, click New Posts and so on) with the site you create a "session" with the server, and you show online. If you logout that session is manually closed and you go offline.Go on. I'm interested.
Makes sense to use normal traffic as the keep alive. Also explains why you only (or seem to) get notifications of new posts while you're active and shortly afterwards. Guess it only needs a cron job running every minute to track and update activity status for all sessions and every post/action updates your last active time against your session/device and checks any poster on the page you're looking at. Looks complicated but quite simple really.When you interact (login, click New Posts and so on) with the site you create a "session" with the server, and you show online. If you logout that session is manually closed and you go offline.
If you go to another tab in your browser, or fall asleep (for around 15 minutes) then that session will expire, and you will go offline. As soon as you do something, like click on New Posts then the session will reactivate and you go back online.
Simples![]()
Stopped throbbing now!What are we waiting for? FrankiePhew. This thread could so easily have been taken wildly off-topic.