Real-time data on webpage with jQuery

Question

I would like a webpage that constantly updates a graph with new data as it arrives. Regularly, all the data you have is passed to the page at the beginning of the request. However, I need the page to be able to update itself with fresh information every few seconds to redraw the graph.

Background

The webpage will be similar to this http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/03/the-panic-status-board/ . The data coming in will temperature values to be graphed measured by an Arduino and saved to the Django database (this part is already complete).

Update

It sounds as though the solution is to use the jQuery.ajax() function ( http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/ ) with a function as the .complete callback that will schedule another request several seconds later to a URL that will return the data in JSON format.

How can that method be scheduled? With the .delay() function?

Answer 1

So the page must perform periodic jQuery.ajax calls with a url parameter set to a server's URL where the latest up-to-data information (possibly just as an incremental delta from the last instant for which the client has info -- the client can send that instant as a query parameter in the Ajax call) is served, ideally in JSON form. The callback at the completion of the async request can schedule the next ajax calls for a few seconds in the future, and then repaint the graph.

The fact that, server-side, you're using Django, doesn't seem all that crucial -- the server just needs to format a bunch of data as JSON and send it back, after all.

Answer 2

If the data is composed by on-the-fly graphics, you can just serve them (in gif, png or any other graphic format) through Django and reload each individually or even reload all the page at once.

It depends on the load and performance requirements, but you can start simply reloading all the page and then, if necessary, use AJAX to reload just each specific part (it's very easy to achieve with jQuery or prototype using updates). If you expect a lot of data, then you should change to generate the graphic on the client, using just JSON incremental data.