A quick look using WebBug (http://www.cyberspyder.com/webbug.html) shows
that all the results are coming from the findchips.com server; no ajax is
being used, but that does not mean that the real time query is being faked:
As the server queries each of the distributors web pages, it cuts out the
appropriate HTML and adds it to the results being served to you. 

The page works by displaying a list of the distributors being queried with a
"spinning" working animated gif next to each name. Each of those images has
a separate ID so it is easy to modify with JavaScript further down the page.

And the queries are completed (between the findchips.com server and the
distributors web page) the data returned by the distributors web server is
modified by cutting off the header and footer so only the actual data is
returned to your browser. 

At the end of each section of data, a small script changes the animated gif
next to the distributors name at the top of the page so that it stops
"spinning". Here is that code for the Mouser results:

br><i>Query finished in 0 seconds</i>
<br><hr>
</form>
<script>
mousersrc= '/images/match.gif';
document.mouser.src='/images/match.gif';
</script>

You can see each section fill in as the query is completed.

I don't understand why your web developer would think it was otherwise...

--
James.

-----Original Message-----
From: piclist-bounces@MIT.EDU [mailto:piclist-bounces@MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of
Vitaliy
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:17
To: piclist
Subject: [EE] How they do it (FindChips.com)

http://www.findchips.com/

Our web developer told me that the page gets created, and sent back to the 
browser all at once. According to him, they are "faking it" -- making it 
*look* like the results are returned in real-time.

It seems to me that it should be possible for the server to:

1. Get results from Digikey.
2. Serve that portion of the page.
3. Get results from Mouser.
4. Serve that portion of the page.

Can the web experts on this list either confirm, or deny this possibility? 
If it can be done, what are some of the possible ways of accomplishing it? 
This is not just a hypothetical question, we're working on a similar 
project.

Vitaliy

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