We don’t have plans for anything like this in core at the moment (I’m not sure we’d want to? we tend to prefer asynchronicity, and knowing what everyone’s doing at any given moment is kind of the opposite!)
Anyway, it should be possible in a plugin… we’ve recently added a PresenceChannel API that makes this type of thing easier:
I didn’t say it should be core feature, I asked if this is possible as plugin or a theme component.
And, your argument is a little bit odd, because when you are in a topic (or in a pm) and someone is writing an answer you can see that this user is writing at the moment. So the system knows what each user is doing atm.
I’m not familiar with Ruby so I can’t make a plugin.
True, my mistake! I read too much into the mention of it as a built-in SMF feature.
Right, but you’re required to be in the same place at the same time… there’s a little barrier there. The utility to seeing that someone’s typing in the same topic also seems clear to me… on Meta, for example, if I see someone from our team typing a response I can comfortably move on to something else.
A separate page with presence makes it significantly easier to stalk or micromanage someone, and the utility aspect outside of that type of behavior seems less clear to me. Is there a use-case you’re trying to cover? Knowing that may help.
That’s ok! there might be someone else in the community interested in building it, that’s one of the benefits about working through features publicly.
I’ve only just become aware of the Who’s Online plug-in, and while I rather like it I think requiring users to completely hide their presence (Hide my public profile and presence features) in order to opt-out is too much.
In my opinion it should be possible to simply opt-out of Who’s Online.
That is the most reasonable and responsible user-care option I’ve seen employed on other forums over the years.
