Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide

Loading Query Data Incrementally

You should never make your user wait longer than necessary. And if the wait is unavoidable, at least make it seem shorter. For example, since browsers are usually accessing remote resources over which they have very little control, they are designed to display partial content as it becomes available. Modern browsers improve performance where it is under their control and give the illusion of performance when issues are beyond their control (such as connection speed, site design, server traffic, and so on).

Browsers use sophisticated caching and rendering algorithms to decrease the amount of work that has to be done between a request and a fully rendered response. Where performance is out of their hands, they employ user feedback to ease the pain of waiting as much as possible. For example, browsers use loader bars to indicate the page’s load progress and render available content before the remainder is fully loaded. Most browsers use an animated icon in the upper-right corner to imply that the browser is making steady progress even though the animation has nothing to do with what the browser is loading.

One of the most appealing aspects of using Flash to develop web-based applications is that a well-designed UI can perform very well. Not only does Flash content stream, but once the page is fully loaded a well-designed Flash application requires fewer round trips to the server than traditional HTML-based applications. And when it is necessary to ...