Question

Is possible to send data to browser multiple times per request? For example my CMS will install some module and i want to send info to browser (downloading module, unpacking module, installing module, …) and update some div or something for better UI feel.
Maybe use flash??

Answer 1

I’ve done something like this in my web application. getstatus.php is a file which returns things like downloading module..., unpacking module..., which is updated by the php script that runs all those things, run.php here.

I use the following javascript code (using jQuery) on a different page, load.php, to show the progress:

<script type="text/javascript">
    var flag = false;

    $(function() {
        startProcess();
        getStatus();
    });  

    function startProcess() {
        $.get('run.php', function() {
            flag = true;
            window.location = 'example.com/finish.html'; // redirect when finished
        });
    }

    function getStatus() {
        $.ajax({
            url: 'getstatus.php',
            success: function(data) {
                // do something with the output of getstatus.php here
            }
        });
        setTimeout("getStatus()",500);
    }
</script>