The discussion revolves around enhancing the ‘Who’s Online’ plugin to display users’ current activities, inspired by a similar feature in SMF. daemon asks if this is possible via a plugin or theme component, not as a core feature. awesomerobot explains that while it’s technically feasible using the PresenceChannel API, it may not align with Discourse’s design principles due to privacy and usability concerns. daemon clarifies the request is for a plugin, not core integration, and notes their familiarity with SMF’s implementation. awesomerobot acknowledges the misunderstanding and discusses the potential for stalking or micromanagement, asking for use-case clarification. daemon confirms they don’t need it personally, just curious. ccstone suggests a more user-friendly opt-out option for the plugin, referencing a prior discussion on splitting profile and presence settings. merefield links to a related meta thread.
Hallo!
Is it possible maybe with a theme component or to enhance the plugin
to show not only which user is online but to show what they are doing doing right now?
Before Discourse I used a lot SMF (simplemachines.org) and there you can see what your users are currently doing when they are online.
This is a built-in feature from SMF, not a plugin or something.
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:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/31db83527b9b02000f133c782e9e6ab4b4a16659
Thanks for your reply!
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.
Thanks for your reply and sorry for my late reply!
I don’t need it, it’s only because I know it from SMF.
Hey Folks,
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.
-Chris
This was already raised here:
