Populating forms "on the fly"

...how do they do that?

[giggle]

Hi

I've developed a website that, when a customer selects from one drop down box other drop down boxes are populated. I've achieved this by reloading the page and passing the initial selection back into it.

When I look at some other websites that do the same thing they appear to be able to do this without re-loading the page and it looks a lot smoother than my page.

How do they do that? In my case there are way too many options to pre-load my page with. I'm currently using ASP and JavaScript - do these geniuses use a different language to create that neat population trick?

Thanks

Mick

[tombola]

This can be achieved via DHTML (combination of Javascript and CSS) or even with CSS alone (hidden layers).

[giggle]

Thanks Tombola

Would the use of DHTML or CSS suggest that the page has to first contain the complete list of, in our case, locations? If so, we currently have 3000+ locations so would that not make the page too big?

If not, I'll investigate how this could be achieved using DHTML. (any pointers greatfully received).

All the best

Mick

[kaled]

Ajax technology was developed to solve this sort of problem. Try forum91. However, be aware that it requires server-side scripts to service client requests (from your form).

Kaled.

[giggle]

Great Kaled, I'll take a look at that now...

Thanks...