How to send a query to the browser from time to time?

[phr at localhost.localdomain]

Admin <me at privacy.net> writes:
> If there were a way to have the server-side application send new
> messages  to the browser this would be awesome because it would save
> dramatically on  bandwidth. The application would consume bandwidth
> only when there are new  messages. There would be no communication
> client-server until people write  a new message.
> 
> Do you know if it's possible?

Some people have done stuff like that with multipart mime encodings
and chunked transfers.  I've looked into it but I'm not sure of the
exact mechanism any more.  It's kind of messy.

The other usual way is to open a tcp connection from a java applet.
I don't like that since it means you need java in your browser.

There's a chat app called arsc that you might look at:

http://manuel.kiessling.net/projects/software/arsc/

Warning, last time I looked at it, it had some security bugs.