Can you "over Ajax" an app?

[Larry Bud]

More of a design question than technical.... combining Ajax technology
with ASP... Top portion of the page contains several Select boxes
which are dependant upon one another. Ajax handles that pretty well,
although when reloading the page, I have to "draw" each one, which the
user can see....

Once the search criteria is chosen, user clicks a Find button...
Currently, the entirep page redraws...

Is there any reason NOT to put the result set in a <div></div> and
retrieve only that portion of the page?

Can one "over ajax" an app?

 

[David Dorward]

Once the search criteria is chosen, user clicks a Find button...
Currently, the entirep page redraws...

Is there any reason NOT to put the result set in a <div></div> and
retrieve only that portion of the page?

Its a pain to bookmark. Its a pain to share the link with a friend.

 

[Aaron Gray]

Once the search criteria is chosen, user clicks a Find button...

Its a pain to bookmark. Its a pain to share the link with a friend.

Yes

Same with some ASP pages. And also frames can cause the same problem.

Is there any way round this ?

Aaron

 

[Kevin]

Once the search criteria is chosen, user clicks a Find button...
Currently, the entirep page redraws...

Is there any reason NOT to put the result set in a <div></div> and
retrieve only that portion of the page?

Might depend on if the user ever types in search criteria. If so, then
the lack of a Back button could make people crazy. Think how many
times you use Back on Google search / groups, etc. Unless you kept a
list of recent searches, perhaps.

But also... if your search item lists are very large, then not pulling
them down again would be a good thing. I hate some automobile review
sites, because each time I choose a make or year or model, they're
loading a new page with more detailed choices. I'd much rather that
went on in the background.

Kev

 

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Aaron Gray wrote:

Yes

Same with some ASP pages. And also frames can cause the same problem.

Is there any way round this ?

Include the URI for the search in the search result and redesign the
application so that it parses the query-part of the URI. Or don't use
that particular technique at all. Or if you use it, provide fallback
where it is not supported.


PointedEars

 

[Larry Bud]

Its a pain to bookmark. Its a pain to share the link with a friend.

Since this is an internal business application, and requires a login,
there shouldn't be any link sharing or bookmarking.

 

[Robert]

Since this is an internal business application, and requires a login,
there shouldn't be any link sharing or bookmarking.

I don't mind that your application does not support easy bookmarking,
but something being an internal business application and requiring login
does not mean that it should not or cannot support it.

 

[Kevin Newman]

Yes

Same with some ASP pages. And also frames can cause the same problem.

Is there any way round this ?

Aaron

I've been working on a library to do that

http://www.unfocus.com/Projects/HistoryKeeper/

This WIP example uses flash, and is more up to date, but the history
library is not tied to flash:

http://www.unfocus.com/Projects/

It's not ready for production just yet, but it's getting there.

This doesn't solve the search engine index problem though. That would
require a different strategy.

Kevin N.