Running APIs in the background

API & Customization
1

Hi all,

I’ve got an application that computes holiday entitlement for shift workers using Javascript and APIs. However some of the APIs take a long long time to compute (Chrome thinks the browser has crashed). Does anyone know a way of allowing the scenes and views the render while continuing the record updates in the background? Or any other ways to speed up the API calls?

Thanks,
Harry

2

Hey @HarryR how long is it taking?

There’s a few options and others will have way more experience in actually implementing these and other ideas:

  • Look hard at your current API logic to cut down any unnecessary calling and looping through records where you can. A hidden table will provide lightening quick access to read-only data instead of retrieving data via the API for example. Step through your code to find out exactly what’s taking time.
  • Consider using async functions async function - JavaScript | MDN (mozilla.org) - pitfalls here include the potentially viewing old data not yet updated after calling a long function. So you might need to modify what they see - record flags, or blocking pages - until the update is complete.
  • Provide visual updates to the page during the updates using a progress bar or something else that demonstrates to the user something is happening. I’m inexperienced at this but I think browsers then are less likely to display alert messages if the current page HTML is changing (needs a reference and clarification?).

Others may well have more lucid thoughts on this.

3

Hi @BradStevens,

Thanks for the detailed response! It’s taking around 20 seconds which is long enough for the browser to come up with an “unresponsive” message.

The hidden table idea is great, I hadn’t thought of this. I’m doing a lot of GET requests so perhaps this could be useful.

Async functions feel a bit beyond my current skill set but from what you’ve written I’m guessing that it would, for example, allow a form to submit and while the code continues to run?

For the third suggestion, I have tried displaying an alert but it didn’t display until all the code had been finished anyway.

Thanks again for the info! Super helpful!

4

Hi @BradStevens,

Sorry, I have another follow up question. What’s the best way to use the hidden tables?

I’ve got my knack-view-render.view_XXX pulling data in from the table onto variables I’ve initiated on the scene render. Then I use these variables on the form submit. Is there a better way to do this?