auto refresh page or frame

[Marcus]

Hello!

I'm buildning a webpage in ASP.NET using Visual Basic. The page
contains a datagrid, a dropdownlist, some textboxes and a couple of
buttons.
The datagrid displays barcodes from a table in a database (Sql Server
2000).

I want to automatic update the datagrid when new new posts arrives in
the table. Before the datagird is updated, the choosen index from the
dropdownlist is going to be inserted in the table. I've come up with
some ideas for a solution to this problem:

1. Using a refresh on the page every 5 second like "<meta
http-equiv="refresh" content="10; url=webDistributionsOrder.aspx">"
+ Datagrid refreshes automatic.
- Delay up to 5 seconds before display.
- The whole page is reloaded and values that are written in the
textboxes since the last refresh dissapears.
- The dropdownlist is reinitialized and the first value is set.
I've tried to get the old values (variables-values before the page was
reloaded)with viewstate but I can't get it to work.

2. Building the page with frames. The Datagrid in one separate frame
and the rest of the controls in one frame.
+ Only the frame that displays the datagrid have to be refreshed (with
a http-equiv="refresh" like the last example).
- How do I pass the information (variables) from the frame that
contains the dropdownlist to the frame that contains the datagrid? Is
this possible to implement with cookies?
Which is the best solution? Is there a better solution for this?

Thanks!
Marcus Malmgren