The like button - what it does and does not do

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Thus far, 28 of our members have used the "like" button on a total of 71 posts. 

The "like" button - familiar to those of us who are regular Facebook users - is a great way to acknowledge and agree with a post, or show your appreciation, without having to write a somewhat banal positive yet null message. 

The way we've implemented the button on our very mature software is to simply turn the work "like" into "yum" when someone presses the button ... and at all future views of the page the name of the liker is shown up.   And if you've liked a post and change your mind, you can "unlike" once you've refreshed and your like is gone without trace (unless I were to trawl back through backups of the database!).

User names showing up on the 'like' are current ones - if you should change your visible user name (something we strongly discourage for the most part) then it will change on posts that you have liked to reflect your new persona.

At the present time there are no facilities to compress liker lists ("and 6 others") and no facilities for our members to do anything like sent personal messages or alerts to everyone who's liked a post, or who has liked any post within a thread, and there are no plans for such facilities.

I am aware that on the end of notifications sent by email, you may be getting an extra [like] word in the text.  Sorry about that - as the software wasn't written with the thought of having the like button, the fix doesn't look trivial and I'm concentrating more on getting passengers on the TransWilts line, a good input to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) consultation so that we can continue to get these good passenger numbers ( cos we still have an appropriate service - see http://www.railcustomer.info ), and on earning money to do the above and to feed ourselves, family and team.

[Red Squirrel]

The way we've implemented the button on our very mature software is to simply turn the work "like" into "yum" when someone presses the button ...

Presumably that was to avoid confusion with the Yellowdog Updater, Modified?

[LiskeardRich]

Grahame, when I liked your opening post here I was redirected to a blank page. Is that meant to happen?

[grahame]

Grahame, when I liked your opening post here I was redirected to a blank page. Is that meant to happen?

Which browser are you using?   The server responds to the "like" with a 204 status code (no content) so it should not happen.

[LiskeardRich]

Grahame, when I liked your opening post here I was redirected to a blank page. Is that meant to happen?

Which browser are you using?   The server responds to the "like" with a 204 status code (no content) so it should not happen.

I was on my ipad at the time, Safari of some kind

I've just liked the above post on IE10 and it goes into a load and continuously loads but going nowhere.

[grahame]

Grahame, when I liked your opening post here I was redirected to a blank page. Is that meant to happen?

Which browser are you using?   The server responds to the "like" with a 204 status code (no content) so it should not happen.

I was on my ipad at the time, Safari of some kind

I've just liked the above post on IE10 and it goes into a load and continuously loads but going nowhere.

Hmm ... Status code 204 (the one I've used) is defined as follows:

10.2.5 204 No Content

The server has fulfilled the request but does not need to return an entity-body, and might want to return updated metainformation. The response MAY include new or updated metainformation in the form of entity-headers, which if present SHOULD be associated with the requested variant.

If the client is a user agent, it SHOULD NOT change its document view from that which caused the request to be sent. This response is primarily intended to allow input for actions to take place without causing a change to the user agent's active document view, although any new or updated metainformation SHOULD be applied to the document currently in the user agent's active view.

The 204 response MUST NOT include a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.

Any geek-types like to advise me of a better alternative?  200 would always redraw the page ... can I write a form of "target = null" into my Javascript request to prevent display at the client end?

[81F]

I tried to "like" Grahame's original post, and received

This page can^t be displayed
^Make sure the web address http://www.firstgreatwestern.info is correct.
^Look for the page with your search engine.
^Refresh the page in a few minutes.

My "like" does not appear to have registered.
Using IE (9?) on aol desktop

[Brucey]

Try something like this, using jQuery (untested):

In the body:

Code:

<span id="txt155611" class="likebutton"><a href="#" class="likebutton">like</a></span>

In the head:

Code:

<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).on('click', "a.likebutton", function() {
    var spanID = $(this).parent("span").attr("id");
    var targetURL = '/coffeeshop/lyke.php?id=' . spanID;
	var jqxhr = $.ajax(targetURL).done(function() {
		$('#'.spanID).html = 'yum!';
	});
});
</script>

Get lyke.php to respond with 200.

[Godfrey Tables]

Any geek-types like to advise me of a better alternative?

I can highly recommend the dojo library which has a nice API for handling AJAX requests...
http://dojotoolkit.org/
.. or more specifically:
http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.9/dojo/_base/xhr.html#dojo-base-xhr

Alternatively, would it be possible to just use the 'target' attribute of the anchor tag to load the anything returned by the server into a hidden iframe? That should 'contain' anything returned by the server without affecting the parent document, so it would be free to return a 200. This is a slightly hacky approach but it might be quick to implement...

[grahame]

Those look like a couple of good ideas.  I'm a bit reluctant to start pulling in larger libraries although JQuery is getting to be pretty standard;  I will probably go with the "quick to implement" hack of redirecting to a hidden iFrame.   BIG pile of stuff on my plate for the next couple of days - probably a Sunday project for me to take further.

[LiskeardRich]

Grahame, I'm using safari on iPad, and when clicking on like I just get a blank screen still. I couldn't gather from the above technical jargon whether this should have been rectified.
Screen print attached of what I am redirected to.

[grahame]

Grahame, I'm using safari on iPad, and when clicking on like I just get a blank screen still. I couldn't gather from the above technical jargon whether this should have been rectified.
Screen print attached of what I am redirected to.

Not yet rectified - too busy with time-dependent stuff (walking in the carnival parade) and stuff that could go badly wrong if not handled ("Reading on Train" thread and fallout).  Busy "real job" week here too, so essentially don't expect a change in the next week - sorry.

As an aside, 390 registered "like"s to date. June forum posts down last month / a pattern we saw in June 2013 and June 2012 too; Some of that might (this year) be due to people clicking "like" who would otherwise have added a little comment to acknowledge reading and approving of the post.

[grahame]

Pinging this up to the top of the pile ...

I've put in a mechanism to try and make it work nicer on other devices (a hidden iFrame) ... works on my browser, but please let me know how it works for you.

Up to 711 likes by 81 different members now ... so it's caught on a bit

[TeaStew]

Seems to work fine for me using Safari on my phone!

[brompton rail]

Yeh, works for me on my iPad!