Full reload of page

andreas5 · August 10th, 2010, 06:35 PM

Hello, when i visitit www.PlanetWrox.com and press one of the buttons to change the page in the "cpMainContent" placeholder, only the part in the placeholder reloads. When i look at the Final WebSite i downloaded with the source code the entire page reloads when i click one of the buttons.

Is there a difference between the pages? Or have i missed something? I am at chapter 11 atm.

By the way i have never enjoyed coding as much as i am now with this book.

Imar · August 11th, 2010, 02:50 AM

Hi there,

Can you be more specific about the page you're referring to? Some pages do a full reload, others don't so I need to know which one you're talking about before I can see what you mean and explain the difference. Maybe you can post the page's exact URL?

Quote:

By the way i have never enjoyed coding as much as i am now with this book.

Thank you. That's great to hear!

Cheers,

Imar

andreas5 · August 11th, 2010, 10:53 AM

I open the C:\BegASPNET\Source\Final website in VWD and view it in a browser.

When i click for example the home button the entire page is reloaded in my browser.

When i open http://aspnet4.planetwrox.com/Default.aspx and view it in my browser it looks alot better:

When i click the home button, or any other button only the content page is reloaded. The header, menu and footer doesnt flicker at all.

Imar · August 11th, 2010, 11:38 AM

There's nothing special going on. On the Wrox site the page completely reloads as well (you can look at the progress bar at the bottom of the screen in IE). It's on a fast server, but with a relatively slow network connection. The code used by the live site *is* the exact same version as the Final folder you downloaded.

What browser are you using? Maybe switching to another speeds things up a little?

Imar

andreas5 · August 11th, 2010, 12:23 PM

I use Chrome. The C:\BegASPNET\Source\Final site was alot faster with Firefox.

But anyhow, how could i make a Menu and Header "static"? So it will not refresh on a redirect. Like on this site for example, it seems to not flicker at all.

Edit: Never mind me, every time i start to think i just confuse myself even more. :)

Imar · August 11th, 2010, 03:19 PM

I can try to make it a bit clearer....

Basically, there are two page models: a complete refresh (a reload of the same page or a request for an entirely new page) or a postback using AJAX.

For most pages, the Planet Wrox site uses the first option: for example, when you go from Home to Reviews a completely new page is requested. Since it is a completely new page, you can't leave the header and footer in place. However, you can give the user the impression some parts remain by:

a) Implement a consistent design
b) Make your site fast. By using minimal HTML and cacheable CSS, the new data that is requested is quite small and thus the browser can quickly redraw the screen, giving you the *impression* only part of the page is redrawn. This isn't true, but that's how it's perceived because of the speed at which it happens.

Additionally, for Internet Explorer you can smooth out page transitions as described here:
http://imar.spaanjaars.com/314/smoot...ge-transitions

The other model uses AJAX. This is explained in-depth in chapter 10 of this book where AJAX and the UpdatePanel are discussed. You see a live demo of that in the Contact Page / User Control.

Hope this clarifies, and not further confuses matters.... ;-)

Cheers,

Imar

andreas5 · August 12th, 2010, 09:36 AM

Thanks for great support. I am surprised how much faster some browsers load pages, atleast through VWD.

edit: Typo