Webpage Listbox Populating Erratically

Shouldn't the lines be in the order like:

$(document).ready(function() {
$("input:image").click(function(evt) {
display( $(this).val() );
evt.preventDefault();
})
})

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This is working much better now, thank you.  However; it still took four clicks for the first list to populate.  That is only if I click on Place.  If I try one of the others like Zipcode it took fourteen clicks!  It seems that the further you go down into the switch, the slower the load response is and you have to click like crazy!

Mmmmmmm. Could the script be sped up somehow?  If not how do you add a loading gif?Thank you.

$(document).ready(function() {
$("input:image").click(function(evt) {
$("#loadingdiv").css("display","block");
display( $(this).val() );
$("#loadingdiv").css("display","none");
evt.preventDefault();
})
})

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... and the div

<div id="loadingdiv"><img src="loading.gif" /></div>

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... and the css

#loadingdiv{display: none;}

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You can create you own loader here:
http://www.ajaxload.info/

About the speed: the database code seems to be plain as possible, there's just a issue of fetched data amount... In other words, no, in my opinion there's not much you can do. Informing the user that the list is currently loading would be nice anyway...

I tested in Chrome, Firefox, IE7, IE8, IE9.  Didn't notice any problems. What browser are you using and experiencing problems?

I'm not a php developer, so can't help you out much on that end.

As far as the jQuery goes - there are a few things you can do to make the code more efficient.

1. Whenever you need to make lots of node insertions to the DOM, it is best to use a Document Fragment.  This way you make all the insertions on the fragment and then insert the entire fragment into the DOM, which in effect is only one DOM redraw.

2. Whenever you need to create multiple elements it is best to use core JavaScript.  This is definitely not noticeable with only a few elements, but becomes much more noticeable as the number of elements scale up. I'm a huge proponent of jQuery, but lets not forget it's a wrapper to pure JavaScript, and thus has the potential to decrease performance.

This is how I would do it:

function display(what)
{
     $.getJSON("mydoggie.php?ajax=true", { "case" : what }, function(data)
     {
          var $doggie = $("#Doggie").empty();
          var fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();

          for (var i in data)
          {
               var option = new Option(data[i].Name, data[i].ID);
               fragment.appendChild(option);
          }

          $doggie[0].appendChild(fragment);
     });
}

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The document.ready event may fire before the entire DOM is complete.  For example, images may still be loading when the browser thinks the document is ready.

As far as the PHP goes, it looks minimalist and lacks error handling (which could be an issue) but it appears to be mostly functionally correct.  You might want to look into the idea of "coding standards" since that will make your code easier to read and debug.

<?php
$list_array = array();

if(isset($_GET['case'])) 
{
    $dbc = mysql_connect('','','') or die('Error connecting to MySQL server.'); 
    $case = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['case']);
        
    mysql_select_db('MyDB'); 

    $result = NULL;
    switch($case)
    {
        case 'Place':
        $result = mysql_query("select RestID as ID, RestName as Name from tblRestaurants order by RestName ASC");
        break;
        
        case 'Cuisine':
        $result = mysql_query("select CuisineID as ID, CuisineName as Name from tblCuisines order by CuisineName ASC");
        break;
        
        case 'City':
        $result = mysql_query("select CityID as ID, CityName as Name from tblCities order by CityName ASC");
        break;
        
        case 'State':
        $result = mysql_query("select StateID as ID, StateName as Name from tblStates order by StateName ASC");
        break;
        
        case 'ZipCode':
        $result = mysql_query("select LocationID as ID, ZipCode as Name from tblLocations order by ZipCode ASC");
        break;
    }

    if($result)
    {
        while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) 
        {
            $list_array[] = array("ID"=>$row["ID"], "Name"=>$row["Name"]);        
        }
    }
}
header('Content-type: application/json');
echo json_encode($list_array);

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Thank you, everyone.  I am going to play around with all of this info for a minute and reply back.  I am using IE9.

Roads_Roads  Where exactly would I put the div and the css for the loader?  I am going to try this.

Just after <div class="content"> would be a fit.
Just put css inside your css section in head
<style type="text/css">
...

Thank you.  I was wondering, is there a way to make the connection to the database before the image is selected?  It seems that once the list is loaded in memory it runs fine, so I was think of a way to run the five querys without seeing them in the listbox, so that when you go to click on the image its already loaded?  Just barking up a tree!

This is possible to load the lists into arrays and then switch the lists (somehow - I don't have a concept). You would have to store them in javascript and switch onclick of the image. But that would increase page loading time.

The problem was in the Script.  After it was cleaned up.  It worked fine.