Dropdown Thoughts?

programmer79

I created a dynamic dropdown combo similar to what you see on cars.com I use javascript to submit the form when the user selects a vehicle make and the form reloads itself and queries the database and returns the corresponding models via php. The whole page refreshes and it somewhat annoying. I know that you can use all javascript and load every combination at load time, but cars.com doesn't do this, yet their site doesn't refresh (at least you don't notice it). My only idea at resolving this would be to separate the page into 3 pages header/body/footer and cache the header and footer, I thought this may improve the noticable refresh.

Thoughts??

Thanks!

jubripley

cars.com does store every combination in javascript.

Look at this line in their source:
<script language="javascript" src="http://a137.g.akamai.net/n/137/3538/20030919090001/www.cars.com/includes/js/makemodels-used.js"></script>

Go to that URL and you'll see all their makes/models.

This is a good way to do it, IMO, cuz the user's browser will cache that javascript file.
I do something very similar on a site I'm working on.
I have a script that queries the db and writes out a js file. The downside is I have to remember to update the js file whenever I make a change to the database. We've also had problems with IE for Mac still using their cached version after updating the file.

programmer79

Thanks jubripley.

I just viewed source and searched for other models, but I didn't look for an external file. Well I guess it is back to the drawing board for me. You mentioned that you had an issue with mac and I had a similar issue with this same code where it wouldn't work in Safari for the mac, but works fine in IE. Is this a known defect in safari??

Thanks!

jubripley

now that you ask me ... I assumed our mac users were on IE, but maybe they are using safari.

The problem we had was that I would update the js file on the server, but their browsers would still use their cached (older) versions.

I had them go to the js file and hit reload and that fixed it.

I don't know much about safari, sorry.