Pagination
Pagination is the process of dividing a document into discrete pages, either electronic pages or printed pages.
Pagination on web pages
Electronic pages displayed on a web browser are often called web pages, regardless of whether they are accessed online via a web server on the World Wide Web, or stored locally offline. More accurately, such documents are named by the markup language that makes them displayable via a web browser, e.g. "HTML page" or "PHP page". With dynamic web pages, pagination is used for such things as displaying a limited number of results on search engine results pages, or showing a limited number of posts when viewing a forum thread. Pagination is used in some form in almost every web application to divide returned data and display it on multiple pages. Pagination also includes the logic of preparing and displaying the links to the various pages.
Pagination can be handled client-side or server-side. Server-side pagination is more common. Client-side pagination can be used when there are very few records to be accessed, in which case all records can be returned, and the client can use JavaScript to view the separate pages. By using AJAX, hybrid server/client-side pagination can be used, in which Javascript is used to request the subsequent page which is loaded and inserted into the Document Object Model via AJAX.
Server-side pagination is appropriate for large data sets providing faster initial page load, accessibility for those not running Javascript, and complex view business logic.
Correctly implementing pagination can be difficult. There are many different usability questions such as should "previous" and "next" links be included, how many links to pages should be displayed, and should there be a link to the first and last pages. Also ability to define the number of records displayed in a single page is useful.
See also
External links
- Pagination @ Wikipedia
