controlling an instance of a web page from a server....?

[05bit044]

i need to create 2 web pages....one for faculties...and the other for students.Multiple instances of the student page will be accessed at the same time, identified by their login id. Now, i need to create a messaging service( kind of) for the teacher to send messages as a pop up to the student(s) who are currently online.... any idea how this can be implemented....?

or to be short...

can you control an instance of a web page from a server....?

[dhtmlgod]

I would look into having an AJAX function that polls a web service for messages for that specific user. This means you can easily resuse it across the site as you please.

[webcosmo]

you may save the message on database in the message table(for example). also have another table named messageRed as:
studentId,messageId,read (bit or char)

Now as the teacher submits a message you may check which students are logged in and has not read the message. if not read show a popup and mark on database as read.