Below is a really nice time ago plugin for jQuery, very similar to what they use here on SO. The problem for me is that it uses this to convert time.
<time class="timeago" datetime="2008-07-17T09:24:17Z">July 17, 2008</time>
That would be great except that I store time on my site in UTC timestamp and not as a formatted time, is there a way to convert something like this to use a timestamp? I know in PHP I could convert my timestamp to this format but it seems like overkill with converting a LOT of times on 1 page in PHP. I could be wrong, anyone else do this in jquery but from real timestamp?
Also I currently do this in PHP on a site to show "2 hours 4 minutes ago" but wou7ld it be better to use javascript for this instead of PHP?
/*
* timeago: a jQuery plugin, version: 0.8.1 (2010-01-04)
* @requires jQuery v1.2.3 or later
*
* Timeago is a jQuery plugin that makes it easy to support automatically
* updating fuzzy timestamps (e.g. "4 minutes ago" or "about 1 day ago").
*
* For usage and examples, visit:
* http://timeago.yarp.com/
* Copyright (c) 2008-2010, Ryan McGeary (ryanonjavascript -[at]- mcgeary [*dot*] org)
*/
(function($) {
$.timeago = function(timestamp) {
if (timestamp instanceof Date) return inWords(timestamp);
else if (typeof timestamp == "string") return inWords($.timeago.parse(timestamp));
else return inWords($.timeago.datetime(timestamp));
};
var $t = $.timeago;
$.extend($.timeago, {
settings: {
refreshMillis: 60000,
allowFuture: false,
strings: {
prefixAgo: null,
prefixFromNow: null,
suffixAgo: "ago",
suffixFromNow: "from now",
ago: null, // DEPRECATED, use suffixAgo
fromNow: null, // DEPRECATED, use suffixFromNow
seconds: "less than a minute",
minute: "about a minute",
minutes: "%d minutes",
hour: "about an hour",
hours: "about %d hours",
day: "a day",
days: "%d days",
month: "about a month",
months: "%d months",
year: "about a year",
years: "%d years"
}
},
inWords: function(distanceMillis) {
var $l = this.settings.strings;
var prefix = $l.prefixAgo;
var suffix = $l.suffixAgo || $l.ago;
if (this.settings.allowFuture) {
if (distanceMillis < 0) {
prefix = $l.prefixFromNow;
suffix = $l.suffixFromNow || $l.fromNow;
}
distanceMillis = Math.abs(distanceMillis);
}
var seconds = distanceMillis / 1000;
var minutes = seconds / 60;
var hours = minutes / 60;
var days = hours / 24;
var years = days / 365;
var words = seconds < 45 && substitute($l.seconds, Math.round(seconds)) ||
seconds < 90 && substitute($l.minute, 1) ||
minutes < 45 && substitute($l.minutes, Math.round(minutes)) ||
minutes < 90 && substitute($l.hour, 1) ||
hours < 24 && substitute($l.hours, Math.round(hours)) ||
hours < 48 && substitute($l.day, 1) ||
days < 30 && substitute($l.days, Math.floor(days)) ||
days < 60 && substitute($l.month, 1) ||
days < 365 && substitute($l.months, Math.floor(days / 30)) ||
years < 2 && substitute($l.year, 1) ||
substitute($l.years, Math.floor(years));
return $.trim([prefix, words, suffix].join(" "));
},
parse: function(iso8601) {
var s = $.trim(iso8601);
s = s.replace(/-/,"/").replace(/-/,"/");
s = s.replace(/T/," ").replace(/Z/," UTC");
s = s.replace(/([\+-]\d\d)\:?(\d\d)/," $1$2"); // -04:00 -> -0400
return new Date(s);
},
datetime: function(elem) {
// jQuery's `is()` doesn't play well with HTML5 in IE
var isTime = $(elem).get(0).tagName.toLowerCase() == 'time'; // $(elem).is('time');
var iso8601 = isTime ? $(elem).attr('datetime') : $(elem).attr('title');
return $t.parse(iso8601);
}
});
$.fn.timeago = function() {
var self = this;
self.each(refresh);
var $s = $t.settings;
if ($s.refreshMillis > 0) {
setInterval(function() { self.each(refresh); }, $s.refreshMillis);
}
return self;
};
function refresh() {
var data = prepareData(this);
if (!isNaN(data.datetime)) {
$(this).text(inWords(data.datetime));
}
return this;
}
function prepareData(element) {
element = $(element);
if (element.data("timeago") === undefined) {
element.data("timeago", { datetime: $t.datetime(element) });
var text = $.trim(element.text());
if (text.length > 0) element.attr("title", text);
}
return element.data("timeago");
}
function inWords(date) {
return $t.inWords(distance(date));
}
function distance(date) {
return (new Date().getTime() - date.getTime());
}
function substitute(stringOrFunction, value) {
var string = $.isFunction(stringOrFunction) ? stringOrFunction(value) : stringOrFunction;
return string.replace(/%d/i, value);
}
// fix for IE6 suckage
document.createElement('abbr');
document.createElement('time');
})(jQuery);
I had the same problem. I'm using Unix timestamps which are generated from PHP, so I decided to do a quick hack and extend the parsing function of jQuery timeago to handle timestamps additionally. Works like a charm. Simply look for the Parse function at around line 79 in the jquery.timeago.js file, and replace with the following:
parse: function(iso8601) {
if ((iso8601 - 0) == iso8601 && iso8601.length > 0) { // Checks if iso8601 is a unix timestamp
var s = new Date(iso8601);
if (isNaN(s.getTime())) { // Checks if iso8601 is formatted in milliseconds
var s = new Date(iso8601 * 1000); //if not, add milliseconds
}
return s;
}
var s = $.trim(iso8601);
s = s.replace(/-/,"/").replace(/-/,"/");
s = s.replace(/T/," ").replace(/Z/," UTC");
s = s.replace(/([\+-]\d\d)\:?(\d\d)/," $1$2"); // -04:00 -> -0400
return new Date(s);
},
Here is something in JavaScript using nothing but Unix timestamps.
var d1;
var d2;
d1 = (new Date()).getTime(); setTimeout( function() { d2 = (new Date()).getTime(); }, 5000 );
var secondsElapsed = (d2 - d1) / 1000;
secondsElapsed; // 5 seconds
Now, you can either store a timestamp in a JavaScript variable in the same scope as your "timeago" function, or your can store it in an HTML element. As mentioned, the time
element is an HTML 5 element. You could do something like:
<p class="timestamp" style="display: none;">123456</p>
Then maybe you have a comment item like:
<div class="comment">
<p>Lorem ipsum et dolor...</p>
<p class="timestamp" style="display: none;">123456</p>
</div>
You could then get the timestamp for a comment by (assuming jQuery since you mentioned it):
var tstamps = $('.comment .timestamp'); // array of comment timestamps
var timeago = ( (new Date()).getTime() - tstamps[0].html() ) / 1000;
It's a bit hackish, but it would work (if I did it right).
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