xSpy v0.4 Review

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

This is a plugin "review" requested by flash.tato.


No outright issues were found.  Just a few concerns and suggestions:

• I think it would be a good idea to start "spying" immediately when the page is loaded.  I don't really see any other purpose of why you'd go to a blank page
• There is a 15 second window when you initially start "spying", which may not be terribly useful for smaller boards.  I guess the purpose of this plugin isn't really to provide a history, so perhaps this is desired behaviour, though, maybe, it might be a good idea if this time interval was configurable.
• Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I couldn't find anything which automatically clears old entries from the page.  Probably not a big issue however.
• Maybe draw a line in the list when the user starts/stops "spying", so they know where new/old entries are
• In the xspy_install() function, $db->write_query should be used instead of $db->query
• There is no breadcrumb on the xSpy page - perhaps there should be one?
• There's not really a fallback for users with JS disabled; arguably, this is pretty much a non-issue, though a <noscript>You must have Javascript enabled to view this page</noscript> would be preferable
• The default polling interval of 1.5 seconds is perhaps a bit odd when timestamps on the server are stored in whole seconds.  Perhaps 1 or 2 second intervals would be more appropriate, although, arguably, there's some delay with sending/receiving requests, which could fill up the 0.5 second gap.  Also, it may be a good idea to allow the polling period to be configurable by the admin, to potentially reduce server load from many requests.
• The plugin doesn't really do extensive permissions checking - it checks whether the user can view the forum or not, but doesn't check stuff like whether the thread is unapproved; arguably not a big issue, but may not be desirable
• Static data which is logged into the xspyevents table is static, thus if changed, could be inaccurate (eg thread being moved to a different forum); arguably not a big issue, but may not be desirable
  

Otherwise, the plugin looks quite solid from what I can see.  Good job flash.tato