Slow response without index.php

[eluser]mikertjones[/eluser]
Hello all

I have developed an app which presents a control panel interface to the user once they have logged on. The browser address bar shows the domain address plus '/index.php'.

Each of the links on the control panel calls a new controller and opens it in a new, popup window. An example url for one of the links might be:
'<domain>/index.php/<controller>'.

For me, clicking any link on the control panel works fine and opens the new window quickly. Some of my users, however, report that when they click a link on the control panel screen they have to wait a long time for the popup to open. They also say - and I can't figure why this should be true - that if they remove the 'index.php' from the address bar whilst viewing the control panel and then click on the link for the popup window, that it opens almost instantly. When they do this, other parts of the process do not work and there is data missing from the popup window page.

Any ideas at all why this might be the case?

Thanks in advance

Mike Jones

[eluser]danmontgomery[/eluser]
If you're using javascript to open a popup, that is happening client side, not server side. Now, if the popup opened and it took a while to load, that would be an indication of slowness either between the user and the server or at the server. But the process of creating the popup is all happening on the user's computer. If that is the case, it's likely antivirus or something similar interfering.

[eluser]charlie spider[/eluser]
older browsers load javascript in series (one after the other) whereas the latest browsers can laod them in parallel, so if they are running something nasty like IE6 then it could explain the slow page load

then, when they remove index.php from the url, the page loads, but incorrectly, which may mean not loading all of the javascript, hence the improved speed.

[eluser]JanDoToDo[/eluser]
If you find that the javascript is the problem then split up the javascript file. HAve the compeltely necessary parts for the page to function loaded in a file in the head tag, and then put everything else loaded inside a script tag at the end of the document just before the /body tag!

[eluser]JanDoToDo[/eluser]
If you find that the javascript is the problem then split up the javascript file. HAve the compeltely necessary parts for the page to function loaded in a file in the head tag, and then put everything else loaded inside a script tag at the end of the document just before the /body tag!

[eluser]mikertjones[/eluser]
Very many thanks for the responses so far.

I am not convinced it is Javascript related. Certainly I am using jQuery and when the control panel (home page) loads, a Jquery document ready function attaches the click event to each of the links on the page. Also, each of the popup windows itself loads some javascript.

The user has no way of affecting the url of any of the links and so I can't figure why removing the index.php from the address of the page that's already loaded (the control panel) should cause a difference in the load time of a popup window.

Does server side php (in codeigniter) use the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERRER'] value in page requests? That's all that's different when a call to the popup is made.

The other odd thing is that I can't re-create their problem from my computers uisng IE6, IE7, Firefox or Safari. The users computers are part of a school network. Are there any aspects of a network structure that might impact on this.

The new window loads slow while the loaded page index.php is present but loads quicly if the user has removed the index.php from the already loaded page.

Any more thoughts?

Thank you

Mike