Reply to: Webpage auto-refresh

[NickFitz]

I know! That probably only works in IE come to think of it, FF etc. is bit different. I figured out a more general version if anyone wants it.

No, it worked fine in my Firefox.

Works fine in Safari 3 on my MacBook

[NickFitz]

Cue NickFitz and one of his fascinating posts.

No need:

Here's the offending line in the Torygraph homepage:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="300;url=?source=refresh" />

WHS

They do make one XHR request after the page has loaded to get a bit of JSON containing the data for the "Most Viewed" bit in the right-hand sidebar. Switching tabs on there causes another XHR to get the relevant content, but that seems to be the only Ajaxy stuff on the home page.

[thunderlizard]

No, it worked fine in my Firefox.

[xoggoth]

I know! That probably only works in IE come to think of it, FF etc. is bit different. I figured out a more general version if anyone wants it.

[thunderlizard]

That looks simpler but this works too:-

http://www.xoggoth.org/pages/hits.html

That's cheating!

[Chutney Spoon]

I've actually worked at a major newspaper.

The Telegraph's auto refresh is probably an attempt to boost its ABC ratings. The "?source=refresh" param is a way of filtering out the refreshes from its own internal ratings

Rather than the ABC ratings I'd say it's an attempt to get more ads infront of you. That's also the reason so many news sites split articles into page 1, 2, 3 etc.

[xoggoth]

That looks simpler but this works too:-

http://www.xoggoth.org/pages/hits.html

[swamp]

I've actually worked at a major newspaper.

The Telegraph's auto refresh is probably an attempt to boost its ABC ratings. The "?source=refresh" param is a way of filtering out the refreshes from its own internal ratings

[chicane]

Here's the offending line in the Torygraph homepage:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="300;url=?source=refresh" />

[swamp]

In the header of the html file something as simple as:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="60" />

Where 60 is the number of seconds between refreshes.

Far too simple.

Much better to include a JavaScript AJAX component to request an update from the server. Much more work. Much more time. Much more invoicing.

[thunderlizard]

Coincidentally I was reading about that yesterday.
There's a timer that runs on the client. Every time it ticks, through the magic of Ajax it posts back to the server to get the latest refresh, and rewrites the appropriate bit.

[administrator]

In the header of the html file something as simple as:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="60" />

Where 60 is the number of seconds between refreshes.

[Clippy]

just refreshes 'innit

Sorry, but I need to know how to make sure I won't catch swine flue from it!

[Zippy]

The website contains a subliminal message telling you to press Ctrl and F5 every few seconds. You won't know you are doing it.

[darmstadt]

I have a USB powered finger which just presses F5 every few seconds