Blinking form on page refresh in MSIE...

[SirWinner]

Definition: MSIE = Microsoft Internet Explorer.

---

We have a web application that refreshes multiple instances of the same ASP file.

In each iteration of that ASP file, the page blinks every time that the ASP file does a page refresh. This ASP file finds the highest filename on the highest directory tree on the selected directory on a web site. (The \"files\" are uploaded using our FTP client from mobile vehicles.)

Basically I have all the logic needed to do everything except to get rid of the darn blinking issue in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x or greater.

Same ASP files have NO issues in Firefox 2.0!

In a nutshell, First ASP builds the framework of the page and the Second ASP is passed parameters from the First ASP file. The Second ASP file automatically refreshes itself every 5 seconds.

Any easy ideas on how to reduce or stop the blink in MSIE?

Thanks,
SirWinner

[DCrazy]

Why are you refreshing the page multiple times? You should be able to do what you want with a little bit of JavaScript (look into XMLHttpRequest). I believe ASP.NET even has stuff like that built-in.

It's how all the \"web 2.0\" sites are able to offer so much activity.

Now as to the actual problem, I think what's happening is that your page is being refreshed, and IE is rendering as-it-downloads. The problem is it receives a chunk of data that can't be rendered yet, and throws up a blank screen until it gets enough data that something can be rendered.

[SirWinner]

Why are you refreshing the page multiple times?

The simple answer is that we are allowing someone to monitor the activity of recently transmitted pictures from a remote \"unit\" to an FTP site showing only the latest picture being displayed for each \"unit\".
- The second ASP file to parses to find that latest file. This is done.

The latest picture for each unit is what get updated in a web table (3x3, 4x4, etc.) within its' own iFrame for presentation in a web browser.

The first ASP only gets used once to setup each iFrame in the table and passes the \"unit\" information to the second ASP which updates the image for that frame based on a predetermined interval.

These 2 ASP files work great in Firefox 2.0! No blinking, no problems.

Just want to get this to work for MSIE 6.x and later versions for those that insist on using MSIE!

In other words, I want our ASP files to work regardless of which internet browser someone uses to view these pages. Otherwise this job is not complete until this is done!

I'll look into XMLHttpRequest using JavaScript like you suggested.

Trying to use purely ASP (and Javascript if needed) to do this... Would rather not use: (1) an ASPx file via ASP.Net; or (2) add-on ActiveX controls for this page!

Thanks.

[SirWinner]

DCrazy,

Since Internet Explorer requires the images to be loaded or blink the form, I'll make sure that they are loaded before updating the frames using XmlHTTPRequest methodology... Will use \"cookies\" to prevent the same image from getting loaded every time the page refreshes.

The 2 ASP files will turn into 4 ASP files... but at least it will work a lot better overall!

Thanks for the feedback!

[DCrazy]

No problem.

You probably shouldn't do the cookie thing though, if it's for the purpose I think it is -- cache control. You don't know what the client's cache configuration is like, especially because IE deletes/refuses to cache things based on available HDD space. And IE will cache things downloaded through XMLHttpRequest just the same as anything else, so you're not really gaining anything by not requesting the image, 'cause if IE finds it in the local cache then it will use the local version until the cached version expires or the user uses Ctrl+Refresh.

[susan123]

very useful ideas are discussed thanks.....

[Xamindar]

Lol, I was gonna say \"Who in their right mind uses asp anymore in web development?\" until I saw the date.

[Sirius]

Necro-poster is suspicious. Why register and pull up a four-year-old thread to say that? Might not be a spam-bot, but I do wonder.

ASP.NET/.NET MVC appear to be used by quite a few people, also - although original ASP, not really now.

[Lothar]

Necro-poster is suspicious.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=susan123

registered for several dozen forums over the last 2 weeks, with little to nothing in common with each other. Typically one post per forum, saying something similar -- how thankful HE is for such helpful information. Yeah, that's pretty suspicious.

Account deactivated. If this is a real person, which it's not, but if it is, please drop me an e-mail at tom [shift-2] tomandcatherine [decimal point] [the first three letters in the word to describe ads that interrupt TV viewing] and I'll reactivate it.

[Xamindar]

Account deactivated. If this is a real person, which it's not, but if it is, please drop me an e-mail at tom [shift-2] tomandcatherine [decimal point] [the first three letters in the word to describe ads that interrupt TV viewing] and I'll reactivate it.

I don't get it......shift-2 on my keyboard gives me a ".

[Lothar]

Account deactivated. If this is a real person, which it's not, but if it is, please drop me an e-mail at tom [shift-2] tomandcatherine [decimal point] [the first three letters in the word to describe ads that interrupt TV viewing] and I'll reactivate it.

I don't get it......shift-2 on my keyboard gives me a ". :lol:

*points and laughs*

you got stuck with Dvorak! You got stuck with Dvorak!

[Xamindar]

*points and laughs*

you got stuck with Dvorak! You got stuck with Dvorak!

Haha, I always wanted to give a Dvorak keyboard a try. I'm actually on my wifes computer which has a Japanese keyboard. The @ gets its own non-shift key which is pretty nice. The layout of this keyboard seems a lot more sane except for the '.

(wife wants to play her game on my computer with the better video card so I'm often stuck on hers)

[Stroodles]

D00d i r lieked teh int3resting id3as too.

[SirWinner]

Forgot how exactly how this was fixed.

IF I remember correctly it was a page load HTML Tag dealing with a delay but don't recall what it is called.

It was ONLY MSIE (Microsoft Internet Explorer) that had the darn blinking issue... the same web page worked great for Firefox and Opera in those initial tests.

[fliptw]

well, two questions... as old as this thread is:

SirWinner, where you setting the width and height tags on the img elements for the pictures, and where you using complete templates or writing to the outgoing stream?

[SirWinner]

fliptw,

The blink was fixed by adding this in the Meta Tag section in the ASP Page:

content=\"BlendTrans(Duration=0.01)\"

---

If I remember correctly, only used 3 ASP Pages.

The master ASP page controlled base content of the page, the size of the iFrames, and how many sets of iframes were used based on a ? parameter on the Web Address:

1 x 1 (1 iFrame)
2 x 2 (4 iFrames)
3 x 3 (9 iFrames)
4 x 4 (16 iFrames)
5 x 5 (25 iFrames)
6 x 6 (36 iFrames)

Each iFrame was a fixed size based on the number of iFrames. Image Width and Image Height were set to fixed values based on how many iFrames were to be used.

If 1 x 1 then the largest Width and Height were used.

If 6 x 6 then the smallest Width and Height were used.

Took a lot of experimenting to get it where we wanted them WITHOUT scroll bars on the iFrames.

The Image Width and Image Height were passed to the Display ASP file that displayed the individual iFrames along with a \"unit number\". That ASP file parsed a directory tree for ONLY the \"unit number\" passed, found the highest file name, then displayed that picture at the chosen Image Width and Image Height. If no image found, then a dummy image was used as a placeholder.

The third ASP file was used to view the specific directory to see more images for the selected \"unit number\". Which brought up something like this page:

http://www.bganx.com/FotoMover/Demo/Fot ... 43&COLOR=1

Hope that helps some.

SirWinner

[fliptw]

you could've done that in two pages(well, one if you wanted to really abuse AJAX) and with no iframes.

[SirWinner]

fliptw,

Hind sight is almost always 20 / 20.

Had to get it to work first.

You can always learn to tweak things once you understand how things work by having a working model.

---

Years ago I had a complex project with a lot of little pieces all in separate programs.

Using the knowledge of what we had already done... We rewrote the project using only 1 program. Dropped some unnecessary code and added in a lot more features in the long run.

---

One could always argue about the best way to do something like writing a simple \"Hello\" program without clearing the screen in a console application using the least executable size.

I have a sample Assembly Program for IBM PC Compatibles that will do it in a mere 15 bytes. (6 bytes of that are \"Hello$\" and 9 bytes of actual code.)

It could be done in perhaps 1 byte or so less.

---
; Use MS-DOS Print Message to Screen Function
MOV AH,09
MOV DX, Message
INT 21h

; Exit to MS-DOS
INT 20h

Message:
DB \"Hello$\"
---

Hello.com consists of these hexadecimal values:
B4 09 BA 09 01 CD 21 CD 20 68 65 6C 6C 6F 24

---

To do the same thing 20+ years ago in C++ would require at least 30K of executable code because of all the excess stuff that was linked into the executable.

SirWinner