How to display progress while CF is busy

Question

Dear all:
My site has to perform some 30 CFIF logics on an estimated
average of 30,000 entries, subsequent to a form submission. That's
600,000 subsequent processes.
To avoid Request TimeOut, I staggered the process. The form
submits to Page1, which runs only 10 of the 30 CFIF, and does so in
CFLOOP batches of 100. Upon completion of the first 100, a
CFLOCATION reloads Page1 for the next 100 entries. When it has
completed all 30,000 entries ( = 300 times a CFLOCATION, followed
by a CFLOOP with a loop count of 100x), it CFLOCATION to Page2,
where it follows the same procedure, but this time on CFIF routines
11 to 20. And after that to Page3, where CFIF routines 21-30 are
completed and a CFLOCATION generates the results page.
ALL OF THIS WORKS BEAUTIFUL AND PRETTY FAST TOO. Done under
60 seconds or so. BUT.... 60 seconds to a PC user, online, is a
long time.
All this time, the form submit page is visible. Any dynamic
gif or flash freezes and the progress bar in the bottom of the
browser is showing that it is eager to display the next page. Then,
after 60 seconds the results page sohws up.
QUESTION: Is there a way to display a progress bar or
something like that? I tried IFRAME, but that doesn't work. I
syspect a FRAMESET probably will but I do not want a frameset. And
a popup would work too but I do not want a popup either ;-)
Don't spend hours on it, just let me know if you know a
trick.
Thanks so much!
Hans

Answer 1

Have you played with <cfflush...>
It allows incremental delivery of content to the client. You
could
theoretically output something in each loop and|or
cflocation. Using
<cfflush..> this output will be delivered to the
browser while the
processing continues.
P.S. Are you aware of the <cfsetting
requesttimeout="seconds"> property
that would allow you to eliminate the <cflocations...>
you used to avoid
the timeout. Just set it to 60 seconds or whatever you need
to run the
request.
Also if you have access to the enterprise CF server there are
async
gateways that could off load the processing to separate
requests not
tying up the one the user is using at all. This can also be
done with a
<cfhttp...> with a timeout="0" parameter. But more
sophisticated
methods to deliver the final product would need be be
developed with
these solutions.