Re: SELECT NEST proposal (fwd)

On Sat, 8 Mar 1997, MegaZone wrote:
> Once upon a time Walter Ian Kaye shaped the electrons to say...
> >Hmm. You know what I'd rather have? Dynamic lists. I know JavaScript can do
> >actions upon popup selection, but I'd rather do server-side scripting.
> >Let's say you have categories and topics, such that:
> >
> >  category1 := topic1, topic2, topic3
> >
> >and
> >
> >  category2 := topic4, topic5, topic6
> >
> >then you have HTML as follows:
> >
> ><FORM ID="dynamic1">
> ><SELECT NAME="cat" ACTION="cat2top.cgi" TARGET="#dynamic1:topic">
> >  <OPTION>category1
> >  <OPTION>category2
> ></SELECT>
> >
> ><SELECT NAME="topic">
> >  <OPTION>topic1
> >  <OPTION>topic2
> >  <OPTION>topic3
> ></SELECT>
> 
> This is nice - but not backwards compatible.  If you are going to use CGI
> to generate the lists anyway, it is a few fractions of a second longer to
> just spit the entire list out in the first place.
> So that instead of one LONG (and always getting longer) list they have the
> breakdown by product, and then the releases for that product line:

Unfortunately, if you have 20 categories and 20 topics in each category, the
backwards-compatible way will create a 400-item list. That is unacceptable
for a popup menu. Besides, a dynamic form would allow for a textbox to be
automatically filled or an item disabled in response to a popup selection
(or in response to any other widget-event).

Fote? Yo Fote... what would be easier to implement in Lynx -- dynamic forms
like I described, or JavaScript?

> +----------------+
> |PortMasters >   |
> |IRX Routers >   |
> |Office Routers >|
> |Other           |
> +----------------+
> 
> Much nicer, and it is a UI people are used to seeing.

Actually, hierarchical popups are very rare -- hierarchical menus usually
appear in menubar pulldowns. But of course we don't have those available
to us in HTML. And too bad neither MSIE nor Nav support disabling (dimming)
of menu items (didn't I see 'disable' in one of the specs?).

__________________________________________________________________________
    Walter Ian Kaye <boo@best.com>     Programmer - Excel, AppleScript,
          Mountain View, CA                         ProTERM, FoxPro, HTML
 http://www.natural-innovations.com/     Musician - Guitarist, Songwriter

Received on Sunday, 9 March 1997 03:56:10 UTC