Search options with text fields

[Shane930]

Hi all, I am working on a search page and so far things have gone well. The
question is this. I have a search form with two text fields. The first one is
for the names of a manufacturer which is a menu. When the user selects the
manufacturer, I need the second text field to dynamicly generate the items this
manufacturer makes to show up in a menu in the second text field. Then when
the user selects the item or items they can hit submit and get the items on a
master detail page.

I have searched high and low for example of this on the web and have found
nothing that helps.

Thanks in advance

Shane

[dempster]

You say you have text fields, but from your description it sounds like these
are select boxes that will list items that the user can select. If you want to
have one select box dynamically generate the contents of a second select box,
you will need to do this with JavaScript. You can use ColdFusion to generate
the JavaScript arrays that you would need for this. Be aware that this can get
complex and lengthy. If you had 10 manufacturers with 25 items each, you'll
have 250 array elements for the dynamic select boxes.

It might be easier to simply select a manufacturer from one page, then go to a
second page that lists items for that manufacturer. You should also avoid
select boxes that are very long, since these are difficult to use. In some
cases, a text display with checkboxes would be more usable.

-Paul

[Shane930]

Thanks Paul, I was hoping to use a table in mySQL to make the select boxes dynamic so maybe Arrays are the only way to do this in CF.

Shane