IWP and the back button

[GoAng]

I'm currently running one of my databases through the IWP Filemaker 7 offers. It's working great!

My problem is I have a "higher up manager" who cant understand why you cant use the 'back' button when manuevering through the interface. I have preset buttons on every layout that guide you through the screens--but he insists that the back button should be usable, otherwise its useless. I've run out of ways to explain it to him. Help.

Can anyone provide a simple explanation (using any technical jargon necessary) that will help me explain this to him?

If I've missed the boat and you CAN use the back button, please let me know.

[Reed]

The back button really only works to send you to the last different URL that was in the address bar (as far as I can tell) In a dynamic web application, like IWP, the address in the browser is the same for most of the pages in the same database, so going back will yield the same page. The different data you see in the window is controlled by the server using sessions to track things like the current record, found set, globals, etc.

A simple back button doesn't really work, because you might wonder if the back button should take you back to the previous layout, or the previous record, or the previous database.... These are things that would better be handled using scripted buttons like you mentioned.

[Steve T.]

Huh. I didn't know the BACK doesn't work... I had always assumed it had. Maybe I can theorize a little, though...

I suppose you can tell this person that FileMaker Pro Instant Web Publishing is unlike typical web servers. It's like a fully-contained system that has no web pages until a web request is made for information.

As Reed alluded to, other dynamic web technologies basically use pre-made template pages with scripting languages (php, asp, etc.) that take user-submitted data and/or url variables and plug them into these templates. FM IWP does not use such pages. It has similar scripting and code internalized, but it is not tied to these pages and can do things "behind the scenes" to change system and environment variables Reed mentioned.

The web visitor only sees it as a single step from 1 web page to another web page, but many unseen steps may have actually occurred to get the user to that next page which are not retraceable. This is possible because it is all internal, like a binary application.

In other dynamic technologies, each template page carefully tracks all variables and passes all the needed variables again to the next page because the web is what they call "stateless", meaning that normally all variables reset to nothing everytime you go to a new web page. Because of this "statelessness", you have to carry variables from page to page by redefining them every time and re-passing them to each successive page via the URL ("GET") or as hidden inputs in a web form when someone presses a submit button ("POST").

I guess FM's lack of template pages and self-contained structure allow it to behave more like the FileMaker application itself, i.e. a standard binary application. That's one of the things that makes FM so appealing... it's unique ability to be both a desktop client application and a web server all-in-one. I don't know of anything else like this, and that's why I would guess that the BACK button doesn't work.

Whew! Sorry for thinking out loud for so long, but your question aroused my curiosity so I thought I'd take you along for the ride as I reasoned it out for myself. I could be wrong, of course, but it seems reasonable to me.

Good luck w/that!

--ST

[txjcfsr]

I had the same issue in FMP6. The users were using the back button to go back to the search results, which were shown in a table view, and clicking on the link, which in turn crashed the system.

I explained to them that the process was a dynamic one, and that the data shown in the previous pages (the ones you get to when using the back button) were not valid any longer because other users were adding/deleting to the system. I had to make them understand that you had to "loop" through the system by generating a new search so that the data was timely and accurate.

I also used buttons with scripts to make it simple for them. My biggest frustration is not in the software, the hardware or the network......it is with the users!!!!!!ARGH!!!!!

[CyborgSam]

When faced by these situations, I tell folks in a sincere and nice manner that the reason for X is so geeky that they don't want me to waste their time explaining it. If they insist, I say "Stop me when the geek-speak goes beyond what you want to hear" and then I start honestly and as clearly as possible explaining the issue. Usually they stop me after 20-30 seconds of geek-speak/techno-babble...

Keep in mind that my goal is not to make the person look stupid, but to convince them that this is a highly-technical issue that they don't need to know to do their job. I'm careful not to sound superior of stand-offish.