Create state-cty dropdown lists

[Marc]

I've gotten everything up and running except for this -- I'd like to
be able to have people have a dropdown list of cities in the US to use
(or wherever) and not have to input them manually into a text field.
When you do then there are issues of misspellings, etc.

Now I have a list of cities from each state that is a sample that
works in an html page. Problem is that it takes up 2 MB! Way too much
to load on a single page and I was wondering how this is accomplished
best -- do people use javascripts that can pull information from
another flat flie? Do people use PHP to connect to a mysql database
that might have a list of these fields and then reloads the page?

I'm really not sure of best options and would be grateful for anyone
to give me pointers or whether there are other examples and even
places to buy these databases (not likely but good to have if I decide
to do so.)

[Fletch]

Marc wrote:

I've gotten everything up and running except for this -- I'd like to
be able to have people have a dropdown list of cities in the US to use
(or wherever) and not have to input them manually into a text field.
When you do then there are issues of misspellings, etc.

Now I have a list of cities from each state that is a sample that
works in an html page. Problem is that it takes up 2 MB! Way too much
to load on a single page and I was wondering how this is accomplished
best -- do people use javascripts that can pull information from
another flat flie? Do people use PHP to connect to a mysql database
that might have a list of these fields and then reloads the page?

I'm really not sure of best options and would be grateful for anyone
to give me pointers or whether there are other examples and even
places to buy these databases (not likely but good to have if I decide
to do so.)

/*does all processing on genenric amounts of linked selects!!!
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
selects=new Array();
selects[0]=document.forms['FrmAdminControl'].elements['test.0'];
selects[1]=document.forms['FrmAdminControl'].elements['test.1'];
selects[2]=document.forms['FrmAdminControl'].elements['test.2'];

initLinkedSelect(selects);
-->

requires following names on options so we know what goes where

<select name"=test.0">
<option value="dog">Dog</option>
<option value="cat">Cat</option>
</select>
<select name="test.1">
<option value="dog-fido">Fido</option>
<option value="dog-rover">Rover</option>
<option value="cat-boots">Boots</option>
<option value="cat-pussy">Pussy</option>
</select>
<select> name="test.2">
<option value="dog-fido-dead">Dead</options>
....
....
</select>
*/

function initLinkedSelect(selects) {
var options = new Array();
var nextselect = new Array();
for (k = selects.length-2 ; k >= 0 ; k-- ){
from=selects[k];
to=selects[k+1];
options[from.name]=new Array();
(from.style || from).visibility = "visible";
for (var i=0; i < to.options.length; i++) {
options[from.name][i] = new
Array(to.options[i].text,to.options[i].value);
}

nextselect[from.name]=k;
from.onchange = function() {
to=selects[nextselect[this.name]+1];
var fromCode = this.options[this.selectedIndex].value+'-';
var selectedoption=0;
selectedoption=to.options[to.selectedIndex].text;
to.options.length = 0;
for (i = 0; i < options[this.name].length; i++) {
if (options[this.name][i][1].indexOf(fromCode) == 0) {
to.options[to.options.length] = new Option(options[this.name][i
[0],options[this.name][i][1]);
if(options[this.name][i][0]==selectedoption)
to.options[to.options.length-1].selected=true;
}
}
// to.options[selectedoption].selected = true;
if(selects[nextselect[to.name]] && selects[nextselect[to.name]].onchange
{
selects[nextselect[to.name]].onchange();
} else {

}
}
from.onchange();
}
}


--
Fletch
A: Because it disrupts the natural flow when reading
Q: Why is it bad to top post?

[Tim Roberts]

Marc <na**@quark.com> wrote:

I've gotten everything up and running except for this -- I'd like to
be able to have people have a dropdown list of cities in the US to use
(or wherever) and not have to input them manually into a text field.
When you do then there are issues of misspellings, etc.
Yes, but that's the only practical option. There will always be city names
(old names, variations, new names) that you don't have in your list. Will
you be able to handle Canadian cities, or European cities?
Now I have a list of cities from each state that is a sample that
works in an html page. Problem is that it takes up 2 MB! Way too much
to load on a single page and I was wondering how this is accomplished
best -- do people use javascripts that can pull information from
another flat flie? Do people use PHP to connect to a mysql database
that might have a list of these fields and then reloads the page?

No. People do not use dropdown lists for cities for precisely this reason.

If you're willing to pay the price for a zip code service, you could have
the user enter a zip code, then look up the cities and states for that zip
code, and present THOSE in a list. It would require a server round-trip,
but there are usually no more than a half-dozen city names for any single
zip.

Overall, it's probably easier to have users enter the city names they like,
and validate them later through the post office.
--
- Tim Roberts, ti**@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

[Mike]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:19:52 -0800, Tim Roberts <ti**@probo.com>
wrote:

Marc <na**@quark.com> wrote:

I've gotten everything up and running except for this -- I'd like to
be able to have people have a dropdown list of cities in the US to use
(or wherever) and not have to input them manually into a text field.
When you do then there are issues of misspellings, etc.

Yes, but that's the only practical option. There will always be city names
(old names, variations, new names) that you don't have in your list. Will
you be able to handle Canadian cities, or European cities?

Now I have a list of cities from each state that is a sample that
works in an html page. Problem is that it takes up 2 MB! Way too much
to load on a single page and I was wondering how this is accomplished
best -- do people use javascripts that can pull information from
another flat flie? Do people use PHP to connect to a mysql database
that might have a list of these fields and then reloads the page?

No. People do not use dropdown lists for cities for precisely this reason.

If you're willing to pay the price for a zip code service, you could have
the user enter a zip code, then look up the cities and states for that zip
code, and present THOSE in a list. It would require a server round-trip,
but there are usually no more than a half-dozen city names for any single
zip.

Overall, it's probably easier to have users enter the city names they like,
and validate them later through the post office.

Impossible. Too much work, plus the cleanup for misspellings would
make this a bear of a task. I could always use zip codes but then the
cities aren't really accurate in some instances since you can have
several different "towns" in one zip code. Not catastrophic but it
would be nice if this were easier.

Now I'd have to worry about dealing with putting an entire database of
zip codes into my database plus build in queries to join the zip code
table with the user table. I could always write a query to search the
zip code database and enter the town name into the user table for,
e.g. user.city to match user.zipcode . The fun part begins when you
want to perform a search and want the user to be able to choose by
city instead of just a zip code so I still have the issue of finding
the city name list for a drop down for users to search...

[Matt Mitchell]

"Mike" <tkd__REM_OVE_SPA_M_inthecity@yahoo__SPAM_.com> wrote in message
news:ao********************************@4ax.com...

: Impossible. Too much work, plus the cleanup for misspellings would
: make this a bear of a task. I could always use zip codes but then the
: cities aren't really accurate in some instances since you can have
: several different "towns" in one zip code. Not catastrophic but it
: would be nice if this were easier.
:
: Now I'd have to worry about dealing with putting an entire database of
: zip codes into my database plus build in queries to join the zip code
: table with the user table. I could always write a query to search the
: zip code database and enter the town name into the user table for,
: e.g. user.city to match user.zipcode . The fun part begins when you
: want to perform a search and want the user to be able to choose by
: city instead of just a zip code so I still have the issue of finding
: the city name list for a drop down for users to search...

I missed the OP, but you'll need to do this on two pages (you could use an
IFRAME if you really *had* to I suppose...)

This is assuming you're selecting data from an existing list - it's no good
for inputting a new address.

1 - User selects state
2 - Submit form
3 - Return list of towns matching that state

As you said, a 2MB page is not practical, and no-one will thank you for it.

Matt