Where to record user's last online time...

Yii 1.1 General Discussion
1

I would like to record a user’s last online time, which is the last time they loaded a page. But that’s different from logging in, and it’s also different from every access; we have several AJAX functions (such as the chat) which I do not want to trigger that, because that would only slow things down.

The main common denominator that I’ve found is actually the layout page. Any time the layout is loaded, I want the last online time to update, and any time the layout is not loaded, I don’t want it to update. And conveniently enough, I also want it recording where the last action was, which is information the layout can get.

Problem is, that’s a view, and I don’t think a database command belongs in a view. Is there some better place where I should put such a function?

2

If you are using protected/components/controller.php which every controller of yours implementing from, you can add some code at the method init().

That is to say, you can record the time to the database.

3

Yep! Controller init() as David is suggesting. For action you may use the ActionId or even parse the HTTP_REFER

4

If you work in a controller, you can use $this->id and $this->action->id.

You can add this fields to the user table, and then add a method in the model:




public function setLastOnline($controller, $action)

{

   $this->lastTimeOline=new CDbExpression('NOW()');

   $this->lastController=$controller;

   $this->lastAction=$action;

}

And in controller.php:




public function init()

{

    $user= User::model()->findByPk(Yii::app()->user->id);

    $user->setLastOnline($this->id, $this->action->id)

    $user->save();     

    return parent::init();

}

Something like that. If in init id and action are not set, you can use beforeAction()

5

Well unfortunately, my AJAX calls are still handled with a controller. But, since there are presumably fewer of them than any other controllers, perhaps I could override the init function somehow…

6

You can use Yii::app()->request->isAjaxRequest to only track on non-ajax requests.