which is the besy way to display long and wide pages

hi ,


i am reconstructing the admin page of the company.
Initially they have now long list of unformatted names with link to corresponding php file.


i want to use ajax with some css formatting using some columns and divs.

now some of the reports are wide and long . I have used two column layout on the page.

Header ---menubar --vertical leftmenuba --- content div box--footer

Now for medum size pages i can use ajax to display content from left menubar

to the right content div box. But some of the reports are wide and long and it does not look nice to display long and wide report in div box which will extend long downand leaving leftbar area empty on left side.

Is there any other nice way to display those kind of reports or i have to open those links on new page

There could be any number of ways of handling it. But you just say, generally - long reports. That could mean everything, anything, and nothing. You don't say what kind, what they look like, what information is needed in what context, and which is not, etc. There's not even a link to a sample page.

Just generally, if there is a way to examine key info, then that's what you need to do. Filter out the rest. Present 'views'. If you need a spreadsheet, show a spreadsheet and let the viewer use the scrollbars. And so on. If you go to an auto-center point of sale site, you don't get the entire report, but you are asked to specify make, model and part, etc. Only the information which is relevant to the viewer.

I would suggest that if the page can be broken into subpages to do that. It doesn't make a lot of sense to be making one huge page when someone might only want a piece of the data. Or make it so they can view only sections at once.

Course PDF files can work too for things that are printable.

Why does AJAX solve anything? I don't see how that even matters here, but don't just use AJAX because you learned how to.

but don't just use AJAX because you learned how to.

I love that line :D

I think you are right , i was trying to insert AJAX evrrywhere. But from now i will think seriously about that . There are reoprs like 30 -40 pages which my company prints daily for delivery information and i think it will be better if i open it on next page rather than displaying inside div box

AJAX is like Flash, it has its uses but when overused it just becomes abused.

I kinda thought you recently picked up some AJAX scripts so I thought you might be just a tad overly enthusiastic about using it! Don't worry, I've done it too with Flash when I started learning. Its hard to find a balance between using something neat you just learned.