AJAX and nested forms

[sarahk]

I've got a form that has 4 parts. You enter the first bit and another section shows and so on.

We have problems with some users although it's tested in several browsers and operating systems including mac.

So, I thought I'd review how I've structured it all and check what the "best practice" is against my efforts.

Can anyone recommend some good articles?

[bretticus]

I don't know about articles, but I've been very impressed with prototype and scriptaculous (http://script.aculo.us/) for portability and ease of use. So far, the ajax and rich clientside controls I've implemented with them have worked flawlessly in Opera, Firefox, Mozilla, IE (including IE 7.0) and Konquerer (which should be similar to Safari.) If you haven't already, check it out.

[sarahk]

Thanks Bretticus

Scriptaculous is the one I've used. I thought xajax was good too but I wanted to keep things simple as I'm using CakePHP and xajax is a framework in itself FWICS.

Technically it's worked fine but some of my nested forms are not working for one user. No errors and repeatable. Yet I use the same browser, same OS. Go figure.

So, rather than try to fight that I thought I'd review my strategy and see if I could make some improvements that might fix it along the way.

[bretticus]

Ummm...dumb question perhaps...but does that one user have javascript turned off in his or her browser. Or is he or she running McAfee / Norton Security Suites? I've heard "rumors" that some of the security software messes with client side scripting perhaps.

[sarahk]

Javascript was on.

I'll check her firewall - bit of problem for a large number of sites if nortons is causing problems. Thanks for the heads up

[bretticus]

Just wondering...can you post any code (stripped down of course.)

Basically, you have drop down menus that spawn or populate new drop down menus based on the parent drop down or as a result of each (all) preceding drop down selections? Are they even drop downs?

Another silly question perhaps: Has you user tried a different browser?

[sarahk]

The nortons is starting to make more sense as it happens on two computers for the user and on IE6 and now IE7. Common factor will be the antivirus - likely to be on both.

I'll dig through my code and see if I can explain it easily. It's not dropdowns though but complete forms that must be submitted, records added, ids returns and then the next batch of info added. We call it the 1-2-3 screen because it steps the user through a complicated data entry process and simplifies it.

[bretticus]

We call it the 1-2-3 screen because it steps the user through a complicated data entry process and simplifies it.

So it's kind of an AJAX-driven wizard approach? (not that your answer helps me help you more...just curious.)