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I am not sure the scope of this project exactly, I'm hoping someone here might have prior experience with this.

I have a project which is to develop a mobile site which will serve as a framework to display content. the 'app' will be a simple list, and when an item is selected, the frame would disappear and pull up the selected content. The display would be extended across the iPad an another separate monitor.

I would have no issues creating something that functioned in this way, however..

I was wondering if there were any way to keep the iPad's interface static (the frame does not disappear and the list content does not display on the iPad), and changing the the current active site on the larger display?

I have intermediate experience with server side languages such as PHP and Ruby, and know my way around javascript (especially ajax calls). I do not however know how to approach this concept. Is this even possible? I would appreciate any feedback or discussion. I am sorry if this question seems more open ended than simple.

Markus013
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    So you want to use the iPad as a remote control to a wall-mounted display ? Pretty neat idea if it's the case. –  Mar 09 '12 at 17:07
  • Is the other, separate monitor physically connected to the iPad? – David Brainer Mar 09 '12 at 17:54
  • Tibo: that is exactly the concept, yes. Hopefully it can come to fruition. // @DavidBrainer-Banker: it is my approach (currently), that the iPad and the external display will not be connected. The external display would be pointed to one url (site.com/container) and the iPad would be on its own page (site.com/remote). I understand the concepts of changing page data using ajax calls, but I do not know how an external ajax call to a file would work..if it does at all. I think the issue would be that the display (site.com/container) would have to force refresh somehow. – Markus013 Mar 09 '12 at 18:03
  • @Markus013 If I understand what you are getting at, perhaps you could have some sort of queue on the server side to which the /remote page pushed commands and which the /container page polled periodically to retrieve commands. – David Brainer Mar 09 '12 at 18:41

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Server-Sent Events were the key to success in this situation.

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/eventsource/basics/

I have a script running on the external display (site.com/container), and an AJAX call running on the remote (site.com/remote).

When the user selects an item on the iPad graphically, the Ajax call stores the value in a file. The contents of this file are then sent via the SSE data format (at a set retry interval) and interpreted back on the external display (site.com/container).

this is not quite as perfect as the 'detect on event' that I would have hoped for, but as far as functionality goes, it certainly seems to work. Hopefully I can improve upon the steps I'm taking and make make the whole thing more concise.

Markus013
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