RE: [OT][WORKFLOW] Any best practice for "back", "save", "continu e" b uttons?

["Francis, Ronald" <fr...@cajvc.com>]

Well I actually have this sort of thing working pretty well, but I do have
the limitations you mention.
But, IMHO, I don't that it creates more problems than it solves. 

1) The session/multiple window problem can be fixed using a token kept in
some hidden field. 
2) Reloading the page , you provide the solution yourself
3) Browser back/forward  is a pain regardless of the approach you take.

It saved us a lot of time , because our app has a lot of "workflow"
scenarios, but its definitely not a silver bullet.
Cheers,
Ronald



-----Original Message-----
From: Bartley, Chris P [PCS] [mailto:cbartl03@sprintspectrum.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 10:44 AM
To: 'Struts Users Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [OT][WORKFLOW] Any best practice for "back", "save",
"continu e" b uttons?


I'd strongly recommend not doing this kinda trick with the session (we
briefly tried a prototype, and bailed on it because it created more problems
than it solved).

Here are a few gotchas:

* By using the session, you eliminate the possibility that the user can view
your app with more than one window open at a time.  This is likely to make
users really confused as to why the links are acting all screwy, get mad,
and never come back.

* Reloading the page (unless you do some sort of "is this the same URL?"
check) will cause duplicate items in the queue.  Going back will keep you on
the same page.  Bummer.

* The user may use the browser's back/forward buttons and the page might be
retrieved from the browser's cache.  Don't think you can easily defeat
browser caching either...IE 5.5 will give you fits.

chris


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Cancro [mailto:DCancro@bridgespan.com]
> Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 8:43 PM
> To: 'struts-user@jakarta.apache.org'
> Subject: [OT][WORKFLOW] Any best practice for "back", "save", 
> "continue"
> b uttons?
> 
> 
> I'm thinking about a design where I maintain a URL stack in a session
> variable that stores where a user has been, so that clicking 
> a "back" button
> (not the browser's) will take a user to the right place.  It 
> would work like
> this:
> 
> Click a "Continue" button -> Push a new URL onto the stack, 
> and take the
> user to that page
> Click a "Save" button     -> Leave the stack alone, and 
> return the user to
> the same page
> Click a "Back" button     -> Pop a URL from the stack and 
> take the user to
> the URL on the top of the stack.
> Click a "Done" button     -> Clear the stack.  This would 
> happen when you
> click a link on a top nav bar or the finish button in a 
> wizard, for example.
> 
> These would be the basic types of navigation.  The actual 
> labels on the
> buttons or links could be whatever you want.  For example, 
> you could have a
> "Continue" button labeled "Save" that takes the user to another page.
> 
> Has anyone tried something like this with good or bad results?
> 
> Thanks,
> Dan
> 
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