RE: form response

Hello Thomas!

This is just an idea...there are those on the list that are much more
experienced with CGI scripts and the exact commands that would make this
work than I, but here goes:

When the "submit" button is pushed, the first command in the script would
be to load a simple page that says "Processing...please wait." The last
command of the script would be to generate your "thank you" page. What
would be even better is to include a command that, if the user hits the
"back" button in their browser before the script is finished executing, it
would simply reload the "Processing...please wait." page. I don't even know
if this is wholly possible, but I thought it was worth a shot.

HTH,

Mike


At 10:14 AM 5/26/00 -0400, Thomas Carreno wrote:
>I have a website that uses a lot of tell a friend forms on it that access a
>CGI script. Even when things are not that busy it sometimes takes quite a
>few seconds to submit that form and go to the exit page.
>
>The only thing I do is write 'Press only once, may take a few seconds' to
>encourage people to wait. But I am pretty sure people click on that submit
>button quite a few times.
>
>The one thing that I am hoping is that when I eventually move to a dedicated
>server, that the response time will be much faster.
>
>But I admit, that I too on some other websites have repeatedly hit the
>submit button out of simple frustration because things were moving so
>slowly.
>
>What would be cool is if there could be a little gas gauge meter that would
>show that the form is processing. Then people would at least know what the
>hell is going on at the other end.
>
>Tom
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-hwg-basics(at)hwg.org [mailto:owner-hwg-basics(at)hwg.org]On
>Behalf Of Michael T. Patterson
>Sent: Friday, May 26, 2000 8:54 AM
>To: hwg-basics(at)hwg.org
>Subject: form response
>
>
>Hello all,
>
>Here's an html / javascript / php question for you.
>
>A visitor to your web site fills out a form and presses submit.  You've
>validated the form fields with JavaScript, and you've directed the
>form's "action" attribute to a PHP script which drops the visitor's
>information into a database, sends off an email or two, and then
>generates HTML that thanks your visitor for completing the form.  But
>the visitor does not see the response page right away; before the
>visitor sees the "thank you" response, the server has to process the
>results and send the new page back.  So the visitor, thinking nothing is
>happening with the page, presses submit again.  And again, and again....
>
>I see this infrequently and suspect the problem depends on server load
>and net traffic that slows the response time.  How do you all deal with
>this problem?
>
>Thanks,
>Mike
>
>
>

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