Thought: Finding players who are online (in General)

has anyone suggested a way to tell if other players are online? if so, was it rejected? and if so, could we instead create a way to see if fellow clan members are online? i think it would be a nice add on to the clan stats page... that way you dont have to time your questions or statements to your other team mates...

I believe this has been suggested and shot down before...

but, I would like it if online players names were written in blue, as a notice that they are online :)

It can't be a specific color, different people run different themes. ;)

It could be easy enough but there is a major caveat.

If somebody closes their browser without logging out, or doesn't close their browser for a long time, the system automatically logs them out after a period of inactivity. So, while it should be easy to tell if somebody is logged in, that isn't necessarily an accurate way to tell if they're online because they might be idling out.

There is a feature like this, actually, raven! It's our clan chatroom... use the chat applet and join (S)Laughter House! ^_~

The 'Users active in the past 15 minutes' link under Community is kind of similar to what you're proposing.
It doesn't show if the user you're looking for is on at that instant, but it does let you know if they've been active in the last 15 minutes.
Or you could always click your clanmate's link to see their last login time.

[edit] Revised the title of this post from "Just a Thought..."

It is better to put a small explanation of the subject of your post in the title "Just a Thought..." is not helpful at all. If everyone named there post that way it would be impossible to find the right one or to look up the post when it becomes old and inactive.

As for the topic itself, the active players list under community is essentially what you're looking for. If you would like it to be more obvious as to who is or is not active then you may want to ask someone to work on integrating that feature. This seems like something Jon would not implement himself, but would insert if the coding was provided.

thanks for changing the name... wasn't thinking about that at the time... and karmic, i tried the chat thing once already and it freaked out on me... wouldnt let me type...

Or you could pm that person to find out if they are online, if not you get a message saying they aren't, if they are they should reply (unless idling)

First start with defining what 'online' actually means...

Then try to apply that definition to the stateless model of web pages, and you'll suddenly realize that it's next to impossible to find a reliable answer to who's online and who's not.

yea because farming people isnt easy enough already....

i was trying more towards the "knowing who amongst your clan was currently playing, without having to use the chatroom"... but that timing out issue still posses a problem... no worries though, thanx guys...