What is the best way of showing progress on an Ajax call?

Question

I have an Ajax call that updates 5,000 records in a database so this takes a lot of time. I have an Ajax \"Loading image\" showing that something is happening, but I am loo

Answer 1

Something seems fishy.

I'm not familiar with databases that can't update 5000 records in a flash... So this isn't just a single update you're applying but a record by record update?

Consider a system which lets a user download 5000 entries and does not mark which ones have been edited and then at the end of making updates applied a single update button which would require that all 5000 records be passed back in some way. That would be worst case.

So there may be some way to partition the problem such that there is no wait time. Consider for instance a temporary db table (or just in the applications memory, pretty easy by just creating a list of ORM entities... but that's an aside) then when it comes time to commit those updates they can at least be done in a batch without requiring any client/server transfer. It may even be possible to mark the individual fields which were edited so there is nothing more updated on the DB except exactly what changed.

There are long running processes and I know sometimes you're stuck having to use what someone has provided you with... but perhaps with a bit of thinking you can simply get rid of the wait time.