Multi-page Wizards [message #553] |
Mon, 22 January 2007 00:19 |
ljkbrost
Messages: 59 Registered: April 2006
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Member |
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Does the menu system support multi-page wizards?
I have a 4 step process that would be greatly simplified by the menu system support this kind of action. Looking at the framework I can hack the std.*.inc files to be not_std.*.inc and get wizard navigation to work, but it's a hack and storing the intermediate state is a mess with session variables.
Any suggestions on implementing this and specifically store the 'temporary' page state until the final commit of the last wizard page?
Thanks,
Kyle Brost
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Re: Multi-page Wizards [message #555 is a reply to message #553] |
Mon, 22 January 2007 05:56 |
AJM
Messages: 2368 Registered: April 2006 Location: Surrey, UK
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Senior Member |
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I tend to avoid multi-page transactions that store intermediate data in memory, and not write anything to the database until the last page has been processed, for the simple reason that if anything fails before the final database update then all that user input is lost and has to be re-entered.
I prefer to write each completed page to the database with a status of 'PENDING' so that no data is ever lost. The status is not changed to 'CONFIRMED' until the last page is processed.
In this way it does not matter if the server crashes, their PC crashes, or the line goes down and drops the connection, no data (apart from fresh input on the current screen) will be lost.
You can either use a single database table with PENDING and CONFIRMED status, or use separate tables for the PENDING details.
Tony Marston
http://www.tonymarston.net
http://www.radicore.org
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