Question

How do I use onchange with a database driven select dropdown list?

Asked by: ahillman

Good Morning and thank you for any assistance!

I work in Coldfusion and have a form in which one of the items is a drop down list:

<select Name="PRequestID" class="severity">
      <option value="">--- Select Location ---</option>
      <cfoutput Query="PRequest">
               <option value="#PRequestID#">#PRequest#</option>
         </cfoutput>
</select>

What I want to do is add an onchange event to the select statement that should a particular item (there are two that would cause a reaction) then a div would show below that select box directing them to other actions.  In this case that this choice allows them to resolve their issue on their own and here is the link they can follow to resolve.

This is what I have for the select statement:
<div id="Request">
      <select Name="PRequestID" class="severity" id="PRequestID" onChange="viewInfo(PRequestID);">
        <option value="">--- Select Request Type ---</option>
            <cfoutput Query="PRequest">                                                                                                      <option value="#PRequestID#">#PRequest#</option>
            </cfoutput>                               
       </select>      
</div>                  

Then I have the following div element below my select statement:
<div id="detailContent" style="text-align:center; margin:5px;"></div>

Then I have a function that I created for the onChange:
<script type="text/javascript">
      // scripts for reports.cfm
      function getHTTPObject() { var xmlhttp; /*@cc_on @if (@_jscript_version >= 5) try { xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e) { try { xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } catch (E) { xmlhttp = false; } } @else xmlhttp = false; @end @*/ if (!xmlhttp && typeof XMLHttpRequest != 'undefined') { try { xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); } catch (e) { xmlhttp = false; } } return xmlhttp; } var http = getHTTPObject(); // We create the HTTP Object

      function viewInfo(PRequestID)      {

            *****This is where I don't know the code*****

            
      function viewHandleHttpRes() {
            if (http.readyState == 4) {
                  results = http.responseText;
                  document.getElementById('detailContent').innerHTML = results;
      }
</script>

The function is the part I am having a hard time with.  I don't know javascript.  I know that I need the onChange to be in my select statement and I know that i need to have the function place the information into the div below the select statement but I don't know the following:

How to say if PRequestID is 10 or 32 then show the links and information in the div below the select statement.

I hope this makes sense... if not I can see if I can clarify.

Thanks!

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Asked On
2007-12-12 at 07:06:26ID23018381
Tags

onchange

,

database

,

driven

Topics

JavaScript

,

Cold Fusion Markup Language

Participating Experts
2
Points
125
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: HonorGodPosted on 2007-12-12 at 07:38:27ID: 20457629

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused.  

Here is the scenario as I understand it.
Given that the user makes a specific selection of a drop down list,
you want to use Ajax to contact an application on the server, and retrieve
a specific set of actions.  When this response is received, you want to...

what?  Create a new selection list?

Is that it?

 

by: ahillmanPosted on 2007-12-12 at 07:42:52ID: 20457660

Not really and perhaps I am going about it all wrong....

What I want to do is loop through my drop down list which is dynamically created.  If a particular item is selected then I want to show a div tag below the select section and display a message with a hyperlink in it.

Basically - this is a help form.  If the user selects an item that they can resolve on their own then I want to tell them that they can do this on their own, and give them the link on where this issue can be resolved.

I thought that by using an onChange if a particular ID is selected then it would trigger this function to display the information to the user.

Does that make more sense?

 

by: HonorGodPosted on 2007-12-12 at 07:56:28ID: 20457765

Will the hyperlink be part of the text returned from the server?

Here is my understanding.  Given a particular select list, a user makes a selection
This will cause a request to go to the server, based upon that selection.  The response
will be used  to populate a div, and may (or may not) include hyperlinks.

Should a different selection be made, then another request would be made to the server to (re)populate the div.

Is this what you want?

 

by: ahillmanPosted on 2007-12-12 at 08:06:07ID: 20457858

INo the hyperlink would not be part of the server information. This would need to be included in the function.  The only information gathered from the server is the list of items to populate the drop down list.

The list is populated by a db and there will be no action taken for most of the items in the list.  However, i wish to create an action should the user select password or network password.  If either of these are selected then I need to display something that states they can do this on their own and give them the hyperlink to the tool for this resolution.

They have the option to ignore this and continue.  If they choose to ignore then upon submittal of the form they need to be given the option AGAIN to resolve their problem on their own and will need to be presented with the information and hyperlink to the tool.

I know this is basic stuff for you guys/gals but i just don't understand javascript enough to make it happen.  

 

by: dakydPosted on 2007-12-12 at 08:32:45ID: 20458096

If I understood you correctly, you can do this by basically adding/removing a CSS class to the <div> that will have the link.  I dummied up an example (see the code snippet) without any of the CF, but it should give you the idea.

The javascript function figures out what the value of the selected options was, and stores that in selectedValue.  Since I dummied up the values, it checks for 10 & 20, so you'll have to replace those with the real values from your database.  If if finds either 10 or 20 (i.e., password or network password), it removes the "hidden" class from that div.  Otherwise, it sticks it back in to make sure the <div> is hidden for all other options (that's the else clause in the if).

The last bit within the else clause is just to make sure that you don't add "hidden" multiple times.  If it doesn't find it in the class, it adds it.  Otherwise, it does nothing - it's already hidden, so don't need to RE-hide it.

Try that, see if it helps.

<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">
function viewInfo(theSel)
{
  var selectedValue = theSel.options[theSel.selectedIndex].value;
  var dtlContentDiv = document.getElementById("detailContent");
 
  if (selectedValue == "10" || selectedValue == "20")
    dtlContentDiv.className = dtlContentDiv.className.replace("hidden","");
  else
  {
    if (dtlContentDiv.className.indexOf("hidden") == -1)
      dtlContentDiv.className += " hidden";
  }
}
</script>
<style type="text/css">
.hidden {
  display: none;
}
 
#detailContent {
  text-align:center;
  margin:5px;
}
</style>
</head>
 
<body>
<div id="Request">
  <select Name="PRequestID" class="severity" id="PRequestID" onChange="viewInfo(this);">
    <option value="">--- Select Request Type ---</option>
    <option value="10">Password</option>
    <option value="20">Network Password</option>
    <option value="30">Monitor Issues</option>
    <option value="40">Email Issues</option>
  </select>      
</div>                  
 
<div id="detailContent" class="hidden">
  <a href="www.google.com">Link to tool You can use to fix this yourself</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>

                                              
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by: ahillmanPosted on 2007-12-12 at 09:43:00ID: 31414483

This worked perfectly.  I just had to make a few modifications to match the need but was exactly what I was looking for.  Thanks!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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