[thelist] loading page

[Christian Heilmann]

> I have a few php reports that I have created and they can take
> anywhere from 5-10 minutes to load/finish, the results are solid and
> everything is tighened up in the script so now I am looking at what to
> do with the blank page that appears for the 5-10 until the page is
> finished loading.
>
> I have tried the PHP loading scripts, and that isn't really working
> very well, when I run it on windows its fine, when I run it on the
> server the script never updates so I stopped using that.  I have
> thought about outputting the results to their own html page and then
> when the script is finshed redirecting them to that page and just
> putting some bogus loading animation, a dancing monkey comes to mind.
>
> Anyone else have some thoughts about how to amuse people while they
> wait for their report to load.

Pong, Pacman or any other game will do.

Alternatively maybe something that might interest them of the company data?

You could have an intranet link for example that states "run report"
and an AJAX call that checks the status every X seconds. Once the
report is done you could pop up an overlay stating that the job is
done.

example:

| Generate Report (this may take up to 10 minutes!) |

...

| Report is being generated... |

,,,

Your report is ready for viewing. Follow the _link to the report_ to
check it in your browser




--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/