Fundimental PHP / Browser question

[carlm]

Hello All,

Apologies if this is a little long winded...

I have been writing database driven browser applications using Apache, PHP & MySQL for some time. The main advantage for me is that on a large network an administrator can issue a password & a local URL and the user has access to the 'software'. Wonderfully flexible accross so many platforms! I also have been using JavaScript more and more to assist with callbacks.

The problem I repeatadly encounter is when rows of form data are generated from the database and displayed in a table on the browser. Each row might contain a text box, some drop downs, checks etc. Lets say the user changes one of these drop downs.... I use a JavaScript event to submit the form with the right trigger variables. Which in turn fires the PHP routines & writes the changes to the database.

BUT... this means that the whole page must then be regenerated. Which means calls to the MySQL DB and waiting for the whole screen to refresh.

What I need is a method of writing the changed info to the database, and then altering the form directly. I posted a similar query to this forum some time ago and Frymaster suggested an excellent compromise. Essentially what I do is fire a seperate PHP browser session with the JavaScript which updates the database. Then I close the session. This works pretty damn good...

But I wonder if anyone else out there has had similar problems and found other solutions. Like: Should I consider a Java applet? Or another language entirely? I guess what I am trying to do is get the browser based application to look and act like a 'real' client-server app w/o the hassle of installing software on client machines!!

Cheers,
Carl.

[brandonschnell]

with decent client machines and a fast network there should be next to no wait for the pages to refresh.

java applets can look and feel like a real application. they take time to develop so you might be spending more time working out the look and feel of the application then working on the actual running of the program. with java applets the user has to download the applet and then the data from the database as they work. but java has the benefit of more control over what the user sees and how they work. just like php, if the network or database is slow your java application will very likely be so also.

[Anon]

I agree....the only other simple way (but probably more intensive) is to store a whole heap of data from the first db query as javascript arrays so that when a user selects an option you can have the client populate the appropriate fields.....but as I said this would be more intensive than a db query...?

Also, if you go this way then you are in for some serious debugging....for two languages🙂

rgds,
Scott d~