For displaying long lists of directories and/or files don't use pagination but use live updates (AJAX like)

Or use what Google (and now Shotgun uses, the continuous update, i.e. start displaying the results as you are getting from the database without having to wait for the whole data set to be received before you start streaming to the web browser.

There was a duplicate ticket opened with similar issues:

When creating earth clients, for instance stand-ins for the traditional Unix find or locate/slocate tools, it would be ideal to have an interface to earth that provides "streaming" of results - where the first results of a query are provided at the earliest time possible.

Two separate issues need to be resolved in order to provide such an interface: firstly, find a way to get the first results of a lengthy database query without necessarily waiting for the whole query to complete. Depending on the database system and the database driver used, as well as RoR internals, this might not be possible.

Secondly, find a way to provide results in an unbuffered HTTP response.

This enhancement is only really useful if both database and HTTP streaming can be implemented; if only one of the two can be implemented, the other one will be the bottleneck.

Milestone Uncommited Work deleted