Here's a problem that I've been working on for the last week:
I want to make a Object browser similar to Windows Explorer in interface, but on an
HTML page. Basically you click on the plus symbol next to a branch and it expands it,
showing child Objects, etc.
The problem is I want to limit the impact this has on the database, so once a branch
is expanded I want it to be cached so that it's data will not be retrieved again until
the branch is closed and expanded again, or it has been left open and un-updated for
too long.
What I *want* to do is store each branch's output in a separate BLOCK, variable or
something, and store the content (complete in formatted HTML tables) in the cached
template. Then when the user clicks to expand a branch, or close a branch, or does
anything that requires new output, the script will load the compiled template, create
new blocks for each of the changed branches, and merge the data.
This way the script only pulls data for the necessary branches, and the branches that
aren't being changed will just stay the same, no parsing or formatting necessary.
So is this possible? Is there a better way to do it?
All comments and suggestions are welcome.
-Brian Hann
