GWT - Populate Grid asynchronously

Question

Hello,

we've got a GWT application with a simple search mask displaying the results as a grid.

Server side processing time is ok as well as network latency.

Client rendering time is ok even on low spec hardware with internet explorer 6 as long as the number of results is not too high (max 100 rows in the grid).

We have implemented a navigation scheme allowing the user to scroll up/down the grid. That's fast enough also.

Has anybody an idea if it is possible to display the first 100 results immediately and pull the rest in the background? The GWT architecture allows this. However I'm interested in possible pitfalls e.g. what happens if the user starts another query while the browser is still fetching previous results etc.

Thanks! Holger

Answer 1

LazyPanel and this blog post might be a good starting point for you :)

The GWT Incubator has also many interesting (albeit not always complete/perfect/stable) tables and other pagination solutions - like PagingScrollTable.

Answer 2

Assuming your plan is to send the first 100, and then bring the rest, you can use bulks for the rest of the results. then, if a user initiates another search, you just wait for the end of the bulk ( ie, check between bulk retrivals if you have a pending query ).

Another way you can go is assign identifiers to the user searches. this will make the problem of mixed results non-existant, and will also help you with results history for multiple searches.

we found that users love the live grid look & feel, which solves most of those problems, but that might not be optional always.