You can use either client-side code that reads an included XML file (see the
<xml> tag for more info) or a Web service to accomplish this without
refreshing the screen. For the first method, create an MSXML document and
use XPath to extract the cotents of the picklist based on the user's
selection in the main list. For the second, use the XMLHTTP control or
remote scripting to obtain the data from the server and populate the pick
list. If you have only IE clients, you can use the Web services toolkit to
simplify parsing the Web service return value; otherwise, you'll have to
parse the returned data yourself (not a big deal).
If the pick lists are small and there aren't too many of them, you can
pre-build all of them on the server and simply hide and show them on the
client based on the user's selection in the main list, again using
client-side code.
"Jim Mitchell" <ji**********@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:ek**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
My Goal is to have a dropdown (DL2) filled from the selectIndexChange
event of a primary dropdown (DL1). These are picklists that will be selected
frequently.
Can someone recommend a strategy that will not require the screen to
refresh every time.
1) If I use HTML dropdown lists, how do I trigger a postback?
2) Can I load XML into the viewstate and use the viewstate data somehow?
3) Should I just bite the bullet and let the screen refresh? How can I
make it more efficient?
Thanks in advance.