php - Push notification to the client browser

Question

I'd like to create an application where when a Super user clicks a link the users should get a notification or rather a content like a pdf for them to access on the screen.

Use Case: When a teacher wants to share a PDF with his students he should be able to notify his students about the pdf available for download and a link has to be provided to do the same.

Answer 1

There are several ways you can accomplish this. The most supported way is through a technique called Comet or long-polling. Basically, the client sends a request to the server and the server doesn't send a response until some event happens. This gives the illusion that the server is pushing to the client.

There are other methods and technologies that actually allow pushing to the client instead of just simulating it (i.e. Web Sockets), but many browsers don't support them.