View Chatter - PHP

This tutorial shows you how to make a ChatterBlock. ChatterBlocks are small windows where users can type in messages. They're also called Shout Boxes or TagBoards and are kind of like miniature chat rooms.

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By: Roger Stringer

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November 08, 2004

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<body onload=window.setTimeout("location.href='view.php'",120000)>
<?php
include('chatter.php');
$q = "select * from chatterblock order by id desc ";
$result = mysql_query($q);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$id = $row["id"];
$name=$row["name"];
$url = $row["url"];
$msg = $row["msg"];
echo "<b><a href=\"$url\" target=\"new\">$name</a></b>: $msg<hr>";
}
?>

Basically code selects all the entries in the chatterblock to be listed, in the order of oldest last, newest first (chronological order). I only put in some basic format to display the entries; you can insert CSS, tables or whatever you like inside this part. In the above code, a user's name is displayed in bold with a hyperlink to the url entered.

Note: It'll display the hyperlink regardless of whether a url is entered or not. if you want it to be more intelligent, run a simple if check to see if $url has a value. If $url is empty, then don't display the hyperlink.

The message is displayed at the side of the name. Each entry is separated by a horizontal rule.

Save this file as view.php

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