I found this very useful, in fact I was using prototype on some websites I created to keep a clock on a calendar updated every minute, but when I wanted to try to use jquery in went into conflict with prototype. So this is a very useful function!

I have one problem though, it is not working correctly in Internet Explorer, while in Firefox and Google Chrome it is working fine. My example is on http://johnrdorazio.altervista.org/SitoFlatnukePersonale/?lang=en&mod=
The calendar block in the right column is using periodicalupdater to keep the time ticking. Works fine in Firefox and Chrome, IE instead gives me a fixed 19:20:41 every time and will not update!

My php file has:

and my jquery script has:

$(document).ready(function(){

var myclockurl = $(‘input#clockurl’).attr(“value”);

$.PeriodicalUpdater({
url : myclockurl,
type : “text”
},
function(data){
$(‘span#jqueryclock’).text(data);
});
})

Any suggestions would be very welcome!

I already got the answer… It had to do with how IE handles page caching. “Check for newer versions of stored pages” has to be set to “every visit to the page” and not to “automatic”.

Sorry for my stupid question, but and what about it when I need more than one PeriodicalUpdater on page? First have influence on second…

Then I have also found out that at times it is necessary to set the right headers on the page, which can also be done in php. I have read in some places that these headers should be used:

header( “Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT” ); // disable IE caching
header( “Last-Modified: ” . gmdate( “D, d M Y H:i:s” ) . ” GMT” );
header( “Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate” );
header( “Pragma: no-cache” );

In other places I have read that “Pragma: no-cache” is deprecated…
Some say that if you don’t disable the caching correctly and you just add a unique id to the page each time you wind up filling up the server cache uselessly…
I guess it can be a complicated issue!

It’s on this same page! Just click on “download the plugin”.

Is there a way to change the parameters being passed to the URL (or change the URL itself) on each periodical request?

This can be accomplished with prototype’s PeriodicalExeceutor by doing something like the following:

var url = ‘http://www.example.com’;
new PeriodicalExecuter(checkSomething, 60);

var checkSomething = function() {
ajax = new Ajax.Request(url + “?format=xml”, {
method:”get”,
asynchronous:true,
parameters:”&id=” + latestId,
frequency:60.0,
decay:1.0,
onLoading:displayLoading,
onSuccess:displaySomething,
onException:processException,
onFailure:processError
});
}

var displaySomething = function(response) {
//process response

//update the parameters being sent in the next request
ajax.options.parameters=”&id=” + latestId + “&” + encodeURIComponent((new Date()).getTime());
}

thanks great work, but you have to set PeriodicalTimer as a global variable of the plugin to allow stop the Timer with clearTimeout

I am trying to have this multiple times on a page, however the second one keeps updating the first one as well. The divs have different ids and everying, yet I cannot figure out what's wrong.

How can I use multiple instances of this plugin? I mean I want to have a periodical updater of 2 different divs' with two different sources.
Thank you! That's super!