I have a database and I need to present a data via HTTP using JSON web services. Currently, I’m designing JSON datasets that will be provided as web services. The data from the tables will be aggregated to suite an app needs.
If the data size is large and we will try to download that at once then it might take too much time and an app will not be responsive at start. That’s bad. It’s well known we should minimize the number of http requests the app will make to download the data. However if we would split the data into small chunks then during every app action step an app will performe http requests and that might be unresponsive solution too.
We are talking here about mobile app development, so internet will be exposed over cellular ISP or wifi, so the speed might be quite slow. I understand the split process depends on app workflow process and etc., just curious are there any general guidelines? For example: if JSON data is larger than 1MB then definitely split it into smaller chunks…
Look at how your mail read work. You probably have tens of thousands of emails in your account. The app will show the first ones then provide a button at the bottom of the list to display more items. It’s a pretty good solution usually to provide a lot of data.
Also @Selvin ideas are just great. Don’t use UI thread to download stuff, use a different thread. Services are pretty good for getting data asynchronously.