NYCPHP Meetup

[Freedman, Tom S.]

I implemented a set of select lists exactly the way you described, and it
seems to work very well, especially in a controlled environment.  I build an
array with the names and values of the second list, as well as the
associated value from the primary list.  Then, when the user selects
something from List A, you grab the value, and create an option in List B
for each element in the array where the associated value matches.  Even with
an array of 50+ items, it loads very quickly.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Simard [mailto:peter at panvox.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 11:02 AM
To: NYPHP Talk
Subject: [nycphp-talk] Need ideas on implementing this feature


Here's the scenario:

In selecting an ingredient to include in a recipe the user makes the
choice, then chooses the unit of measure ( Hamburger 3 ounce ), however, 
some ingredients have a custom conversion unit available to them which is 
a user defined unit of measure,  and other ingredients don't. 

Problem:  When loading the select boxes with ingredients, the user has 
yet to choose an ingredient, so determining if an ingredient has a custom 
conversion associated with it is unknown.

My thought here is to write/load a JavaScript array with the all the 
custom conversions and their associated ingredients.  When an ingredient 
is selected a function determines if that ingredient has a custom 
conversion associated with it, if yes, then the unit of measures 
available to that ingredient in the next select box are updated to 
reflect the fact that the selected ingredient has custom conversion 
munits to choose from in addition to the standard measurements.

So mixing the JS and the PHP, is this a sound method, or would one 
recommend doing it all server-side?  If the recommendation is server-side 
I envision lots of page updates in the process.

FYI: I know my client will have JavaScript enabled.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, Pete