Autofill submit form via GET parameter

[rexim]

It should work like this:

• There is a link that looks like http://www.loglist.net/quote/new?content=<quote-text-in-base64> — for example, for "Hello, World" it will look like http://www.loglist.net/quote/new?content=SGVsbG8sIFdvcmxk
• When we open http://www.loglist.net/quote/new?content=SGVsbG8sIFdvcmxk in a browser the submit form is opened and autofilled with "Hello, World" text
• Using base64 enables us to compress the suggested quotes in case the are really big

This feature can be useful for https://github.com/codingteam/horta-hell/issues/306

[ForNeVeR]

I can propose a more robust solution to the mentioned problem:

• post quote using POST request to staging area (and store it to the database);
• generate unique link to that staging area quote (e.g. http://www.loglist.net/quote/new?contentid=rexeem) - that link may be even linked to horta-hell user (so every user can have place for one staging quote, but we may need to discuss that moment);
• when opening that link, the quote is extracted from the database and put to the submit form.

Staging area quotes may be automatically cleaned up after a while - e.g. weekly.

[rexim]

@ForNeVeR that's a good idea!

[rexim]

@ForNeVeR I suggest to make a staging area as an in-memory map (id -> text) that has a limited size and deletes old entries on an insert operation. We don't need to persist this information and such approach doesn't require to clean up anything weekly.

[ForNeVeR]

I wouldn't say that such in-memory storage is widely accepted solution in web today. For example, if Heroku wants to stop our application (as it always do) - all staging data will be lost. Are you really sure we want exactly this? Are you really sure you are mixer?

[rexim]

@ForNeVeR the data in the stage area is needed only for 1-2 minutes. Or even less. Then it can be easily thrown away.

Heroku stops our application when nobody uses it for a while (this time period is definitely greater than 1-2 minutes, we can check the official documentation if you want). In case the application is stopped, staging the data by a POST request will trigger heroku to start it up. And then everything should work as expected.

[ForNeVeR]

Well, if you want then let's try to implement your proposal.

[rexim]

On the other hand, in-memory approach with size-limited map is not that scalable... I mean at some amount of active REST users the staging area will be wiping very fast. I'll think about it. :)

[rexim]

After a little conversation in our jabber conference we decided to use the database solution.