First off, please, under any circumstances, populate a dropdown list with
4000 items. This will be completely useless to the end user.
One way you can cache something like this, is to put the items in a list in
a javascript file. So store it in an array, whatever. Include the js file in
your .aspx, and pull the list from there. The beauty of js files, is that
every time you open a new browser instance and browse to the page, the
browser checks for a newer version of the js file. Of course, there is no
way to force the client to get a newer file other then having them do what I
described.
This would mean, that you probably will need to manually maintain this js
file, or have a process that knows how to reconstruct it based on what is in
SQL server periodically. Maybe whatever lets you add members, would then
make sure this file is updated as well.
The filtering you want, is not something going to happen on its own. You
will need to write javascript that will be able to search through the list
of people and filter it, and change the contents of the dropdown. Depending
on how you are storing this data on the client, this can potentially cause a
noticeable delay.
I would recommend having a dialog lookup, which allows a user to filter/do a
search on member, select a member. Selecting a member would close the dialog
and populate the field value on the main page with the selection.
"Paul W" <qq*@qqq.com> wrote in message
news:%2******************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
Hi - I'm developing a 'front-desk' app. to be used over the internet.
(SQL-Server back-end).
One of the pages will require the user to select an entry from a large
(~4000) list of 'member names'.
What are the options to reduce the bandwidth load of this? Is there any
way that I can cache the list on the client (and allow them to
periodically 'refresh' their local copy?). Or, does anyone have some code
for a 'manual' auto-select option where the user can enter the start of
the name (eg. "Wri") into a textbox and the list will be populated with
all matching names?
The list will be called upon many times a day and is relatively static
(~1-2 changes a day).
Thanks for any and all suggestions,
Paul.