Advice - how to display multiple sequential pages?

[Bob Mariotti]

Guru's;

I have a site where a new cgi script (perl) collects a LOT of
information from a server before formatting it and displaying a
dynamic page to the client. The time delay can be from 3 to 20
seconds.

I have been trying to display an interim page with an animated gif and
a please wait type of message which would be replaced by the actual
resulting page.

I've been playing with Content-type: multiple/something boundary="blah
blah"

but I am having absolutely NO LUCK!

Can someone please post an example of how this might be accomplished?

Thanks a million from a frustration tech person.

Bob

[Andy Dingley]

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 01:20:40 GMT, R.********@Fina ncialDataCorp.c om
(Bob Mariotti) wrote:

I have been trying to display an interim page with an animated gif and
a please wait type of message which would be replaced by the actual
resulting page.
BTDT

Stuck all sorts of thing into <div id="dvPleaseWai t" >Loading...</div>

Then at the bottom of the page (after the data has loaded) a snippet
of JavaScript to clear it dvPleaseWait.in nerHTML = "";
I've been playing with Content-type: multiple/something boundary="blah
blah"

Never tried that.
Another technique for huge data volumes is to look at XML data
islands. You can get some excellent interactive client-side features
this way (sorting / filtering). OTOH, it tens to be a M$oft-only
solution.

[Bob Mariotti]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 11:59:20 +0200, Stephen Poley <sb*****@xs4all .nl>
wrote:

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 01:20:40 GMT, R.********@Fina ncialDataCorp.c om (Bob
Mariotti) wrote:

I have a site where a new cgi script (perl) collects a LOT of
information from a server before formatting it and displaying a
dynamic page to the client. The time delay can be from 3 to 20
seconds.

I have been trying to display an interim page with an animated gif and
a please wait type of message which would be replaced by the actual
resulting page.

I've been playing with Content-type: multiple/something boundary="blah
blah"

but I am having absolutely NO LUCK!

Can't say I'm impressed, as a user, by "please wait" messages. I think
I'd approach from a different angle. The opening page, where a visitor
is likely to enter a site, should never take a long time to load anyway.
One could then put a note next to the link to the slow-loading page:
"may take a while to load ..."

Depending on exact circumstances you might NOINDEX the very slow page to
prevent visitors going to it directly from a search engine.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

Stephan;

Thanks for the comments. I do agree with you about the slow loading
pages. I too find them annoying.

However, this particular application is only as the result of the user
requesting a reprint of a particular document that has been previous
produced and archived. The relavent information must be located from
within a few million records, the the extracted information formatted
and displayed as a printable html. That's what takes the time.

I've received a few suggestions about breaking it into two pages where
the first contains the animated gif and the second is the actual
requested output. We'll see how that goes.

Bob

[Stephen Poley]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 14:55:26 GMT, R.********@Fina ncialDataCorp.c om (Bob
Mariotti) wrote:

Thanks for the comments. I do agree with you about the slow loading
pages. I too find them annoying.
Perhaps my post wasn't clear. I don't mind pages which take rather a
long time to load, if I've been warned in advance that it will take a
while, and it seems likely that the page will be worth waiting for. What
I wanted to say was that under those circumstances a "please wait"
message on the page itself doesn't seem to add much. A title and page
heading would be enough.
However, this particular application is only as the result of the user
requesting a reprint of a particular document that has been previous
produced and archived. The relavent information must be located from
within a few million records, the the extracted information formatted
and displayed as a printable html. That's what takes the time.

Fair enough - so if there's a little "slow loading" warning by the
link/button that invokes the page, that is likely to be sufficient. But
it's up to you of course.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/