Select Box - Dynamic Cursor?

[april]

I've searched all over the web and all through my webmaster reference books, and have yet to find an answer to my problem: how to create a database-populated select box control in an asp page in which the cursor automatically jumps to the first appropriate item in the list as the user types an entry into the empty select box.

By default, the select box cursor jumps to the first item in the list that begins with the last letter typed by the user. Consider this drop-down list for a given select control:

Amsterdam
Buenos Aires
Ellington
LeComte
Leeds
London
New York
Sydney

Suppose the list is actually very long, and the user is looking for 'Leeds'. In a VB or Access drop-down, if the user types the letters "Lee" in a select box/drop-down control, the cursor will jump to the first item in the list that begins with "Lee" and bring him to his desired entry of "Leeds". In an asp page, the cursor only seems able to search the list based on the last letter typed by the user. In this example, the cursor would jump to "LeComte" when the user types "L", then to "Ellington" when the user adds an "e" to his entry, and again to "Ellington" when the user adds another "e" to his entry. How can I code a select box control in an asp page that will behave like a select box control in VB or Access? Note that my select boxes are typically populated from a database, so a Javascript control won't work.

[strangerstill]

Sorry, but what you want to do is pretty much impossible using current technology. See, the HTML standards to date have two main types of input control - the text box, and the dropdown list (also the multiline text box, the password box, but these are just variants). What you want to use, what you've been using in VB, is a combo drop-down box, i.e. a combination of a text box and a dropdown list. These are not supported by HTML, so I'm afraid I can't really see a way forward except as you said using Javascript, which you can't do.

[qball]

strangerstill is correct in the limitations of the HTML objects, at best drop-down with multi-select capabilities, not custom searching.

I've made what you describe as a PB class and in java (AWT? Swing?, I forget). Both would find match to typed text, or iffin no match could/could not make new entry, depending upon what you want. I know this is really not helpful, but the PB class could reference other instances of same class, never had need in java. What this means is three drop-downs, customer, order, product. Choose customer, order DD filtered for that cust, choose order, product DD filtered for cust/order combo. Users loved it and worked great.

Now, I have seen some javascript objects behave somewhat like you describe, tho browser compatibility may be issue. No good example to offer...

So, why:

Quote:

Note that my select boxes are typically populated from a database, so a Javascript control won't work.

I doubt ASP has achieved a level of sophistication much greater than when I used (maybe me missing something???). To populate DD, used:

ASP ADO to execute DB query to display. ASP code to generate HTML:

<select name=selectname size=1>
<option value=''>val</option>....
</select>

Whether generate HTML or browser based javascript, what's the big deal?

[^hyd^]

ya, I think you would have to either make a custom activex control in vb (or your desired language of choice) and then users would have to accept your activex control on their first visit to the webpage. Otherwise, as qball mentioned, you could probably do it with a combination of a textbox, drop-down box and javascript... possibly lots of javascript if you want it to play nicely in all browsers and all versions!

but, now you've given me an idea, and I might have to spend some spare time on something like this!! no guarantees tho, it's hard lately to come home from work and do more coding...

g'luck!

[april]

Thanks to everyone who replied.

QBall - the reason I can't reasonably use Javascript is that Javascript can't send calls back and forth to the database or to IIS services; I'd have to bring all the data down to the browser before using Javascript to manipulate it, and these drop-downs have a LOT of data in them.

I've considered bringing the whole recordset down to the user's hard drive in an ASCII file and using Javascript to reference the records from there, but there's no way to make this entirely transparent to the end user. At some point, they'd have to agree to let the application write to their hard drive - many probably have their security settings so high that they wouldn't even be prompted to save the file, and some others, when prompted, would deny permission. That's the same challenge I'm facing with creating my own Active X control.

I get requests for this kind of behavior on my select lists all the time. Users seem to think that since it already exists in Access and other Windows apps, it should be very easy to implement in a web app as well. When I ask them if they've ever seen any drop-down behave this way on any website---even a big, commercial site like Amazon or Microsoft---, they acknowledge that no, they've never seen it. Then immediately ask, "Why not?"

[strangerstill]

Hmm... I thinking, Java.

Quite easy:

JComboBox cityBox = new JComboBox()

Also getting data from a text file is easy,

dataSource = new InputStreamReader(new URL(getDocumentBase(), "recordset.asc").openStream());

[qball]

Quote:

QBall - the reason I can't reasonably use Javascript is that Javascript can't send calls back and forth to the database or to IIS services; I'd have to bring all the data down to the browser before using Javascript to manipulate it, and these drop-downs have a LOT of data in them.

"can't send calls back and forth to the database or to IIS services; "

There is a simple reason for this. There are basically 2 types of clients:

One that needs a server.
One that needs a server...

oops, both same answer???

There exists no .browser. that will maintain pesistent .DB. connection over .TCP/IP. connection. Ways to fake, btw...

Tried ASP?

Quote:

Note that my select boxes are typically populated from a database, so a Javascript control won't work.

[Rhino]

The only possibility I could think of would be to use two controls. A text box right on top of the dd box. If you say you have a way to populate the dd box from yoru recordset, when text is typed into the text box, and therefore changes, restrict the recordset to LIKE "StringInTextBox*". It might be more awkward than them jsut being able to choose from the whole list though.

I'm thinking ASP wasn't really designed to have super long lists.

Is for distribution on a LAN or the internet? If on the net, it would be sweet to have an Active X form resembling a VB form on the page, but maybe they all don't use IE.

If you really need to do this, and its just over a LAN, I would seriously think about making a non-browser app in VB and mailing it to them, making it place a shortcut on their desktop. I know sometimes browser-apps are "neat", but not totally practical.

[^hyd^]

so, you want to re-query the db each time the user types a letter?? why?? seems like a lot of unneeded server processing, imo...

how many items in the listbox are you talking about?? 100? 200? 500? 1000? more??? heck, I'd throw them all in there either way (assuming the limitations of the listbox can handle it!!) then it's done, in one call to the server!

Quote:

I'm thinking ASP wasn't really designed to have super long lists.

as far as i understand it, ASP has nothing to do with controls on a webpage. textboxes, listboxes, buttons etc, are all html form controls. In VB, they are intrinsic (sp?) controls, and afaik, are not 'really' the same, they just look, and for the most part, act the same.

please correct if anything is wrong...

cheers!

[qball]

Quote:

so, you want to re-query the db each time the user types a letter?? why?? seems like a lot of unneeded server processing, imo...

would be, iffin using browser as client, an, almost universal client...

Quote:

There is a simple reason for this. There are basically 2 types of clients:

One that needs a server.
One that needs a server...