On Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 04:26:27PM -0300, lucio wrote:
> 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.

It's my belief that breaking the back button is unacceptable¹.
Unfortunately, not breaking the back button puts severe constraints on
how your web forms work.  We spent quite a lot of effort on the Quixote
form framework.  It still feels pretty clunky but, after quite a few
attempts, we haven't been able to improve on it.

I've toyed with the idea of using continuations for remembering state.
It would be extremely cool if it could be made to work but, I feel, it
requires language level support for persistent continuations.  Paul
Graham and Viaweb used continuations for their store applications.  I
tried the demo once and noticed that they broke the back button too.

If you want the back button to work, you must remember a continuation
for every request.  That's probably not feasible on a popular site so
you have to decide when to start throwing them away.

> All these choices left me with very little use for most of quixotes
> goodies.

I'm not sure which goodies you are refering to.  The form framework is
definitely an optional feature that will not be suitable for everyone.
PTL is optional as well (although we find it really handy).  I assume
you are still using the publisher.  That's the core of Quixote.

> 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?)

We separate our applications into a model layer and a UI layer.  The UI
is in it's own sub-package and consists of PTL files.  It's okay to have
functions and classes in the UI package as long as it's part of the
presentation logic.

  Neil

¹ http://python.ca/nas/log/200306/index.html#03_001