<select> box

[Steve Wright]

I have a select box with a lot of entries in it, some of which start with
the same letter.

I want the user to be able to type the first few letters into the select box
and have the list "move" to the appropriate place.

any one know how to achieve this?

TIA
Steve

[Vincent van Beveren]

Re: &lt;select&g t; box

Unfortunatly the select box isn't editable in most browsers (if it can
be made editable, I didn't know) However, there is kind of a solution
for this. The most simpelest (and inefficient way) of searching for
a string and selecting it could be this:

function seek(str) {
select = document.getEle mentById("selec tor");
for (i=0;i<select.o ptions.length;i ++) {
v = select.options[i].value;
if (v.length>=str. length) {
if (v.substring(0, str.length)==st r) {
select.options[i].selected = true;
return;
}
}
}
return;
}

Suppose your code looks like this

<SELECT ID="selector" onKeyPress="jum p(event);">
</SELECT>

Then you could handle the onKeyPress event like this.

str = "";

function jump(e) {
e = (e==null?window .event:e);

if (e.keyCode==8) { // backspace
str=str.substri ng(0, str.length-1);
} else {
// don't know exactly if that is the right function
key = String.fromChar Code(e.keyCode) ;
if (key>='A' &&.key=<'Z') {
str+=key;
}
}
seek(str);
}


Something like that should work. I didn;t try it though.

Good luck,
Vincent

Steve Wright wrote:
[color=blue]
> I have a select box with a lot of entries in it, some of which start with
> the same letter.
>
> I want the user to be able to type the first few letters into the select box
> and have the list "move" to the appropriate place.
>
> any one know how to achieve this?
>
> TIA
> Steve
>
>[/color]

[bruce]

Re: &lt;select&g t; box

"Steve Wright" <wright@wcc.gov t.nz> wrote in message news:<108692129 3.20923@muldoon >...[color=blue]
> I have a select box with a lot of entries in it, some of which start with
> the same letter.
>
> I want the user to be able to type the first few letters into the select box
> and have the list "move" to the appropriate place.
>
> any one know how to achieve this?
>
> TIA
> Steve[/color]

Without getting into detailed coding, here would be my first
attempt:
1. Have a global variable, keeping track of the letters typed
(call it vKeysPressed for this example)
2. In the body tag, have an event handler
"onkeypressed=" Gatherkeys()".
3. in "Gatherkeys ()" you would concatenate the key pressed to the
variable vKeysPressed. use the event.keyCode to find out what key is
pressed.
4. Now, using vKeysPressed, search through your select control
for the item which matches vKeysPressed.

[Ux]

Re: &lt;select&g t; box

Steve Wright wrote:[color=blue]
> I have a select box with a lot of entries in it, some of which start with
> the same letter.
>
> I want the user to be able to type the first few letters into the select box
> and have the list "move" to the appropriate place.
>
> any one know how to achieve this?
>
> TIA
> Steve
>
>[/color]

Do you really need your user type letters INTO THE SELECT BOX ?
I find this not very clear for users because of the backspaces, del,
arrowkey they can type without to see the complete word actually inserted.
IF you change your mind and decide that the user can type input in a
textbox that drives the selectbox positioning then answer this post.
I've just solved the same problem with a binary search on the options
array. Very fast even on 10000 entry (entry must be sorted).

Ciao
Marco