We have an advanced reporting package that we've been developing which allows users to query data they are granted access to, and build reports from this data (doing print jobs, mail merges, etc.). The wizard allows them to filter this data to better suit what report they are currently generating. During this filtering process, especially when using date ranges, the 2,083 IE limit is crushed.
So I set out on using user session variables and decided that perhaps some things might make using these variables a little easier in the toolkit.
Instead of allowing template::forward to only use ad_returnredirect (which could, and does, ultimately break the IE character limit of 2,083) I thought a procedure such as ad_cache_returnredirect would help those pages using the the templating system (those that wanted to) cache values between pages of a package for a user's session (see https://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/patch?patch_number=237 and https://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/patch?patch_number=239). This procedure still uses ad_returnredirect with any variables excluded after values are cached.
Having a "cached" key and filter in ad_page_contract could help a page retrieve those values that it expects *may* be in cache for the calling page and package, and allows all other filters to still act accordingly (see https://openacs.org/bugtracker/openacs/patch?patch_number=238).
This has eliminated the IE character limit for us, and seems to make session variables much easier to work with.
