Real Time HTML

I want to use a web browser to monitor the status of a process, and I
want the updates in real time. (In this case, real time means not
much more than about a 1 second lag.)

Is there a better way to do this than to do an auto-refresh of the
browser every second?

I've seen some references to server-push, but it seems that it's
something not universally supported.

Sorry if this isn't the best forum to post this, not sure where the
best place would be.

Dan

Hi Dan,

"Dan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I want to use a web browser to monitor the status of a process, and I want
> the updates in real time.

This discussion was very popular in the mid 90s for "broadcasting" purposes.
E.g.: Microsoft Channels
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...w/overview.asp
or Netscape Castanet Tuner
http://wp.netscape.com/communicator/glossary.html.


> Is there a better way to do this than to
> do an auto-refresh of the browser every second?

This technique is called "client pull"


> I've seen some references to server-push

The first definition I read was that the server doesn't terminate the
connection after it has served an html page, but leaves it open and feeds
content in real time. I think I've seen this as a chat application.

A more general definition of "server push" can be found on
http://xulplanet.com/tutorials/mozsdk/serverpush.php


Yet another option is to use Java or ActiveX, which is still browser based,
but not really HTML.


Christian