Last Activity and Last Visit

[Daroz]

Easy question, but I can't seem to find the answer in the manual, and a search on the forums makes it even more confusing.

What exactly is Last Activity and Last Visit, and how are they related?

-- Brian

[tubedogg]

Last Activity is the last time that the user clicked on a link in your forum.

I'm not quite clear on Last Visit myself so we'll let a dev answer that one.

[Daroz]

Thanks for the quick reply - greatly appreciated...

So to clarify, Last Visit notwithstanding (glad to know I'm not the only confused one ), if I went to my forum page (logged in with cookies) and closed my browser without clicking on anything from there, Last Activity would NOT be updated. I would need to click on another in-forum link to get that field to update.

That sound about right?

-- Brian

[Mike Sullivan]

last visit = last time any lightbulbs were updated (after [cookie timeout] seconds of inactivity)
last activity = time of last page view ( >= last visit)

[Daroz]

Originally posted by Ed Sullivan
last visit = last time any lightbulbs were updated (after [cookie timeout] seconds of inactivity)
last activity = time of last page view ( >= last visit)

Ok, so that I grock this... Let me give an example and let me know if I'm sane..

Lets just presume all values are 1-1-1970 to start with...

I look at the forum main page. -> No changes
I click on a forum -> Last Activity updated to now(), no change to Visit
I view a few more pages, but do not mark forums read -> Last Activity updates accordingly but Visit is unchanges.
I close my browser. -> No changes

.. This is where I'm unclear ... Please correct me if (when?) I'm wrong.

I come back, some time in the future. My lightbulbs are cleared on login and my last visit is now set to? now() or when the old session expired?



I guess the end result is how accurate is that last visit? Does it take a long time to update?

Thanks for the info! (Mabye add this one to the manual?)

-- Brian

[Mike Sullivan]

Note, everything's actually in unix timestamps, so now()'s not 100% accurate. But it's easier.

I look at the forum main page. -> No changes

I'm just going to chop this one out as it's actually a bit of an anomaly in the formula.

I click on a forum -> Last Activity updated to now(), no change to Visit
I view a few more pages, but do not mark forums read -> Last Activity updates accordingly but Visit is unchanges.
I close my browser. -> No changes

Correct.

I come back, some time in the future. My lightbulbs are cleared on login and my last visit is now set to? now() or when the old session expired?

Last visit = last activity, THEN last activity = now();

So last visit is time of last page view from the previous session (assuming there's enough time [the cookie timeout] between sessions for it to change lastvisit).

[Daroz]

Ok, that makes alot of sence. (Yeah, now() wasn't the best example, it's late.. )

So in between the time the user has closed his browser, and come back for another session, the last visit really reflects the visit before the last.

So from a progmatic standpoint... If I'm working through those values in the user table (oversimplified code here

If (time()-$lastvisit > $cookietimeout) {
  $lastvisit = $lastactivity;
} else {
  // Everything's ok.
}

This clears it up greatly.

Thanks!

-- Brian

[Mike Sullivan]

Check out sessions.php and see where/when we update lastvisit + lastactivity vs just lastactivity.

[Kaya]

Why lastvisit?

In the admin area under "Find users" – "Display Options", you can display last visit but not last activity.

But for me as administrator it is much more interesting to observe the last activity – the last visit does not carry much point!

[tubedogg]

You can view both after clicking [edit] next to a user's name.

[Kaya]

Yes, I know, but I would like to view the last activity for all users at once – to see on one sight who has not been checking in recently.

This is possible for last visit but not for last activity – which surprises me. Because I would have thought that it is more interesting to know when somebody has checked in the last time, rather than when somebody had checked in the time before last time.