Re: Question on HTML "state" and ability to interact with server

I think downloading all the source once, and showing/hiding things via DHTML (CSS+JS) would be the only likely PHP-driven solution -- and possibly a faster one at that (sounds like more calls to the server). Interested to hear how non-IE browser behave with the stuff you are talking about. Are you sure the stuff they're talking about isn't all just hot-air? Sometimes MS will use some pretty big words and long paragraphs to promote a big fat nothing :) Justin on 30/04/03 9:46 PM, Vania Smrkovski (vania@pandorasdream.com) wrote: > Hello, > I've been programming in PHP for about a year, now, experience which has > helped me get a job as a programmer at a local company here in town. > However, they are a MS .Net shop, and I've had to, needless to say, adapt my > experience fairly extensively. > > Fortunately, I also have some very professional programmers who are keeping > me very disciplined in good coding style, and I've had ample opportunity to > learn a lot about programming approaches which I am applying to my PHP > coding at home. > > One thing which I'm curious about, and I'm hoping someone here can direct > me to some good resources, is .Net's "Code Behind" and "Post Back" > behaviors. The net effect (forgive the pun, it was unintentional) is to > allow the .aspx page to NOT be stuck in the static state of a typical HTML > page. > > For instance, I am working on a program right now that includes drill-down > menus, and the essence of the feature I'm describing is: I am able to NOT > load the potential values of the drill-down target until the first drop-down > menu has an item selected. At this point, the web server calls a stored > procedure with the criterion of the first drop-down menu and the resulting > values are returned to build the 2nd drop-down menu. > Now all of this is done without the same refresh, and in fact I am told > that the page IS NOT being loaded at all, but only the information for that > menu. > > I am assuming this is something only featured in Internet Explorer, but I > was wondering if there were something I could look at to do something > similar in PHP? The only things I could think of always led me to the same > conclusion, the HTML page won't render until all of the code has been run, > server side, and any updates of content would result in the entire page, and > therefore its state, being re-rendered in the browser. > > > Can someone tell me of some good resources discussing this behavior, and > whether it is or might one day be supported by PHP? Back in my HTML-only, > pre-PHP days, I made non-Explorer browsers load content dynamically using > DHTML by sending the contents of a URL to a layer after I entered text and > clicked a button, so hypothetically PHP might fit in that scheme. If anyone > can point me in the right direction, I would be greatly appreciative.... > > _________________________ > Vania Smrkovski > Internet Design and Programming > http://pandorasdream.com/ > >