Best way to return a user-generated file, AJAX or Forms?

Posted by Bill Zimmerman on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Bill Zimmerman
Published on 2010-03-28T16:43:47Z Indexed on 2010/03/28 16:53 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 296

Filed under:

AJAX

|

forms

|

JavaScript

|

submit

Hi,

I'm new to web programming, so I need some help.

I am writing a custom file-creation app for my site. A user visits the page, clicks on some various options and toggles some checkboxes, and the presses a 'download now' link.

I have a PHP backend which will be processing the submission, and generating a PDF file. After the user presses the download link, I want the download to start like it would for any static link.

My question is: What is the best way to do this? From my limited understanding, I have a choice between using AJAX or somehow using forms to submit the data. What are the advantages/disadvantages of each? Does anyone have any good links to examples?

Thanks

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about AJAX

Ajax call from a form rendered as Ajax response (jQuery + Grails: chaining ajax requests)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I was expecting the below scenario common, but couldn't find much help online. I have a form loaded through Ajax (say, create entity form). It is loaded through a button click (load) event $("#bt-create").click(function(){ $ ('#pid').load('/controller/vehicleModel/create3'); … >>> More
Ajax Control Toolkit Now Supports jQuery

as seen on Stephen Walter - Search for 'Stephen Walter'
I’m excited to announce the September 2013 release of the Ajax Control Toolkit, which now supports building new Ajax Control Toolkit controls with jQuery. You can download the latest release of the Ajax Control Toolkit from http://AjaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com or you can install the Ajax Control… >>> More
The Microsoft Ajax Library and Visual Studio Beta 2

as seen on Stephen Walter - Search for 'Stephen Walter'
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 was released this week and one of the first things that I hope you notice is that it no longer contains the latest version of ASP.NET AJAX. What happened? Where did AJAX go? Just like Sting and The Police, just like Phil Collins and Genesis, just like Greg Page and the Wiggles… >>> More
Video Aulas gratuitas de ASP.NET AJAX

as seen on ASP.net Weblogs - Search for 'ASP.net Weblogs'
Olá pessoal, A Microsoft publicou 14 vídeos que cedi a eles a respeito do ASP.NET AJAX. Todos os vídeos são gratuitos, e caso você ainda use o AJAX estas lições podem ajudá-lo bastante. Tenha um excelente estudo. Instalação do AJAX Control Tookit ASP.NET AJAX: Controle calendário ASP.NET… >>> More
July 2013 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit

as seen on Stephen Walter - Search for 'Stephen Walter'
I’m super excited to announce the July 2013 release of the Ajax Control Toolkit. You can download the new version of the Ajax Control Toolkit from CodePlex (http://ajaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com) or install the Ajax Control Toolkit from NuGet: With this release, we have completely rewritten the… >>> More

Related posts about forms

Designer issue in VS: Events cannot be set on the object passed to the event binding service ...

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a little problem: the Winform control (that contains between others WPF) suddenly stopped to be displayed in Designer. Message: Events cannot be set on the object passed to the event binding service because a site associated with the object could not be located. Call Stack: … >>> More
Winforms TabControl causing spurious Paint events for UserControl

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
For our project, we've written a WinForms UserControl for graphing. We're seeing some strange behavior when our control is sited in a TabControl - our control continuously fires Paint events, even when there is absolutely no activity by the user. We only see this in the TabControl. When we site… >>> More
C# Gui setting control.Enabled to false fires OnClick event???

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
For some really weird reason when i set the .Enabled property to false on a simple text box on a small GUI, it fires a radio buttons OnClick event and its causing lots of problems. I have breakpointed the txtBox.Enabled = false; and after stepping over OR into it i jump straight to the OnClick event… >>> More
Django's forms.Form vs forms.ModelForm

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Could anyone please explain to me similarities and differences of Django's forms.Form & forms.ModelForm? I've used Django for 4 days, so excuse me if I don't know basic things. Thanks in advance! >>> More
C#.NET Forms programing - Modal and Non-Modal forms problem

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I have a problem with modality of the forms under C#.NET. Let's say I have main form #0 (see the image below). This form represents main application form, where user can perform various operations. However, from time to time, there is a need to open additional non-modal form to perform additional… >>> More