Martin Maney wrote:

>On Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 11:32:52AM -0300, lucio wrote:
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>>broken... because the user cant go back and split a new path unless you
>>keep the state of all pages he visits, which, of course, sucks.
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>Unless it's a feature, because the app needs to *know* that the user
>has backed up.  I try to avoid that myself, but that can be difficult
>when you're trying to deliver an application, as opposed to more or
>less static words and text, through the web.
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My last web application had so much state, that i had to go this way.
all the user sent with each request was a secuence id (to verify
eveerythin was ok, and to select betwen the multiple windows each
user/session could have), and an action parameter (where did he click).

I could have made bigger and bigger posts with time, so the user could
have all the state on his browser, but the processing took time. Si
every choice he made needed to be re processed with every http query.
This of course was not good. But the option of somehow caching or
structuring the information around 'atractors' (places and setups where
people usually end up) was too much work.

The classes i made for this app ended up pretty good, imho. I have
widgets (which can hold more widgets) and each widget catches events
(clicks). So every page is like a tree structure. And i only set it up
once, and the change the componentes depending on what the user clicks.
Very fast for coding and adding features.

The back button, thou, is still a problem. When i find the time ill make
each page reload to the current page when someone hits back or ask to
the user is he wants a new session. This is a very bad ui design issue,
as all users have 'back' hardcoded in their heads, but the app is just a
prototype, so its good enough.

>The worst of both worlds (of all possible worlds?) is when the app
>needs to know you've gone back but there's nothing at all to prevent
>doing so "the wrong way".  One of the online information services we
>subscribe to was very bad that way a few years ago.  I think they've
>fixed that, but maybe we've all just learned to pretend the back button
>[or gesture] doesn't exist when using them.  :-/
>
btw:  explorer is so slow that i really get mad when i try to make
the back gesture on explorer and have to wait for the menu to pop up.


All these choices left me with very little use for most of quixotes
goodies. But i still have the content/presentation issue left. How do
people on this list do it?
1- ptl and code togheter
2- ptl and code togheter but only when the code is presentation stuff
3- application logic - presentation logic - templates (what templates?)

any further elucidation on this topic would be greatly aprettiated.

Lucio.

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