Sending multiple forms at once with Ajax

Question

This is a technical design question more then a syntax question.

I have a large page with 9 forms corresponding to different tables. I've wrestled with the design and I there's no way out I have to send all the forms via ajax to the server for processing. There are lots of interrelations. I can't combine the forms into one large one either. So the question is what's the best way to send a lot of forms via ajax. To further complicate the issue there are dynamic forms with fields with same names.

I'm trying a technique of:
1. serializing each form, 2. prepending the form name to each field name 3. combining the serialized version of the forms into one 4. posting that combined serialized form to the server as one 5. breaking them apart on the server side into separate arrays and then finally doing the application logic

I just don't know if there's a tried and true easier solution and I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill

Answer 1

I'd prepare a javascript dispatcher which would smartly do the job of posting the data. So when the submit button is pressed it would collect all the data needed, and then send the data to the appropriate controllers on the server side. It could block the form, in the meanwhile, or display a "Processing..." popup.

Answer 2

If there's genuinely no way to redesign the page, then your solution seems simple and straightforward to me, not at all "mountain"-ish. To me, though, your description of the page screams "redesign," though of course I don't have enough information to work with.

One such redesign would be to send field changes to the server as they happen, rather than waiting and submitting the entire thing. The server side can hold them as "pending" if you need the user to explicitly commit the whole thing when they're done. But that depends on expense of server resources, etc.

Answer 3

You should be able to send 9 separate AJAX requests without hassle (assuming that a: each doesn't rely on the response of another, and b: this isn't something which happens all the time).

Using your javascript library (you are using one, right??) just loop through your forms and AJAX submit each one. I think it'll probably only process probably 2 at a time, but if that's not a problem to your design, then all should be sweet.

It would certainly keep the PHP/Server-Side part of the equation much much simpler.

If you were working with a high-traffic site, then you'd probably want to reduce the number of requests being made, but chances are your current setup will work sufficiently well.