Lately, I have been doing a lot of research (of course googling :P) on building real-time application (like chat application). So far I have come across Elephant.io, Socket.io and Ratchet. And some of the terms I stumbled upon were web-sockets, bi-directional communication etc..
I am building an auction site where it involves countdown timer. I am trying to achieve something like when one user bids, the timer gets updated in all the client's browser without page refresh (something like server broadcasting the change of event to all other connected users).
The problem is, I am building the application with PHP (Pyro-cms). The server, where it will be uploaded is Apache-based server and does not support node.js. One of the most common stuff I notice was most of the real-time applications were utilizing node.js.
Is it possible to build real-time application using PHP , Socket.io and javascript only? or may be with angular.js?
I really cannot use the server that support node.js so have to completely rely on apache server. I even dont know if it is possible. If there is any resources, reference or tutorial, it will be very helpful.
