Online status orbs display in forums

[gtjangbang]

My idea is showing online status orbs next to the name of the thread starter so it's easy to find someone online. It would be really helpful in the market forums because it saves time when looking for someone online. This could either just be in market forums or even every forum. I made a concept on photoshop, tell me what you think of my idea.

 

[ll champion]

Dunno if this VB supports it, wouldn't be to bad of an idea otherwise. Kinda making us look like P.A though

 

[Palooza]

Don't really see why not if VB supports it.. and theres an addon for it.

 

That looks way too sloppy in my opinion.

 

[Govind]

This would require
1. A code fix
2. A style fix (for each of our styles)
3. An additional query per each thread on a forum listing which would require joining user with session (keep in mind that the thread display shows CACHED usernames, so using the userid straight away isn't possible).

Basically, something like

SELECT `user`.`userid` , `session`.`lastactivity`
FROM `user`
LEFT JOIN `session` ON ( `session`.`userid` = `user`.`userid` )
WHERE `user`.`username` IN (<usernames of everyone on the thread listing... determining this list in itself would require more queries>)

Then math to calculate how long ago the last activity was, subtract it from the current time (and with users who opt to display more threads per page than usual, that is a lot of math), and then display the series of image.

This is too much effort for something that could be just as easily accomplished by simply clicking on the username, and it will have negative consequences on performance as well.