Back in the days of Builder 1.6, we sat down and pondered the specification for Builder 2.0.
We asked ourselves: When moving from one page to the next, why don't we just use AJAX to pull in the page content so there is no page refresh needed?
The answer to this question literally lasts several weeks, if not months. Pain, lots and lots and lots of pain. Sounds simple on the surface but the second you start looking in to it (in the specific context of Builder and Confluence at least), it gets truly complex - especially when you take accessibility requirements in to consideration.
Anyway, it's a question we keep asking ourselves. With every new release of Builder we keep going back to that same question. After all, there would be some extremely huge benefits:
- Drastically reduce bandwidth (and therefore page loading time, cost, server load, etc) when moving from one page to the next - no longer need to load all the navigation, page design and layout from page to page
- Extreme willy-waving "wow factor" and long-term wishlist goal achieved!
There is a long list of other benefits, but from my point of view those two alone are enough for me to keep pondering how to make this a reality.
But, like I said above, there is extreme complexity. No, really, it's very extreme and painful. I can't stress enough just how much pain... I wake up at night with random ideas, none of them hold water and I go back to sleep annoyed.
Then the brainwave landed. I was busy working with Alain on some tweaks to Builder 2.1 (which is shaping up real nice!) and the big lightbulb above my head not only lit up, it started flashing and dancing around. In an instant we worked out exactly how to not only make the idea a reality but also completely bypass ALL of the pitfalls. Hopefully...
I'm not going to say any more just now - we need to get Builder 2.1 (and of course our new sales process) out the door first. We then need to spend some time sleeping and probably also have some padded cells installed and get on-site medical advisors. Builder 3 will push the limits far beyond anything envisaged before 
Now I have to go and lie down for a moment in a dark room...
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