[FX.php List] Conditional value lists with PHP and FileMaker

[Gjermund Gusland Thorsen]

The table looks fine with me, to bad the initial posting has more
words than what I can read in a day,
show me the source and I might be able to help you optimize it.

ggt

2008/11/19 Steve Winter <steve at bluecrocodile.co.nz>:
> Hi Anders...
>
> Doesn't sound like a very user-friendly database structure that you're stuck
> with...!! clearly the concept of 'relational' was lost on the original
> builder...
>
> I've done a similar type of thing... originally I used JavaScript and built
> large JavaScript arrays to hold all of the data... everything but the first
> dropdown 'locked', when a selection was made from that I populated the
> second drop-down (using JavaScript) and made it active, and so on across the
> table...
>
> My second version used Ajax to do basically the same thing, however in both
> instances I was working from relational data which certainly makes things
> easier...
>
> I'd be more than happy to take a look at your code and see if I can make any
> suggestions for improvement if you're interested... feel free to send it to
> me off-list... (I have no idea what ggt was saying ;-)
>
> Cheers
> Steve
>
>
> On 19 Nov 2008, at 16:46, Anders Monsen wrote:
>
>> Has anyone on the list worked on this issue? I spent most of yesterday
>> putting together a process that works, but may not be the most efficient
>> process. I was wondering if anyone would be open to looking at my code (the
>> snippet is 130 lines long at minimum, so I didn't just want to throw it out
>> there) to see if there are ways I can improve the process. It certainly made
>> me appreciate how easy FileMaker makes this process...
>>
>> (I just discovered and read Jonathan Stark's article in July
>> FileMakerAdvisor after writing this email. It uses Ajax, so I may try to
>> incorporate his techniques, although I'm using FX.php and no existing value
>> lists from FileMaker, just existing data.)
>>
>> Here's the scenario. I have a table with four fields: district number,
>> district name, campus number, and campus name. I want the district and
>> campus to be drop down menus, where the user sees the name but submits the
>> number into another FileMaker database/table. Also, when the user selects a
>> district, I need the value list of campuses to correspond just to their
>> appropriate district.
>>
>> My first issue was to find a way to create an associative array with
>> district numbers=>district names. Apparently I took the hard route in
>> dynamically building associative arrays... After several failed attempts, I
>> used a function that I found on php.net in the section on "array_push" to
>> create this array. The first problem I ran into was that the list currently
>> contains 270 records. For now I had to manually change the groupsize in the
>> query to above 300, but I plan to first query all records to get a count,
>> then make this the groupsize. The reason for this is that the district array
>> becomes unique only after all records have been loaded into the array, so
>> the default groupsize of 50 has to be modified.
>>
>> Is there a way to 1) build a better array and 2) make the district array
>> unique in the initial query? The database is structured as one file, with
>> all four fields, and so the district numbers and names are repeated. I
>> didn't create the database, and I can't change it.
>> Distnum |       Distname        | CampusNum     |       Campus Name
>> 10                      The ISD         2                       School
>> 10                      The ISD         2.1
>> OtherSchool
>> etc.
>>
>> Additionally, after several failed attempts to get the Javascript onchange
>> function to work when the form changed, I resorted to DreamWeaver's
>> JumpMenu, which seems to work fine. Has anyone been able to get a working
>> onchange form and what is the correct syntax? When the user selects a
>> district from the dropdown, the page reloads with the district number in the
>> URL.
>>
>> Given all of the above, my process *does* work, and the page does not
>> appear to load with delays. I have not used conditional values lists with
>> PHP/Javascript in about three years, so I am a little unsure of best
>> practices.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Anders
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>
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