Using an iPad as an interface to change an external display's content

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.