Web Expression4 — Listbox Object

Topic

New Reply

I have spent the last several hours, Googling…and I am no closer to learning the information I seek—I must be a “bad” googler and/or lousy with search terms.

Anyhow, I would like to create a dynamic–one column listbox for a webpage. The listbox will populate from a text file, etc. The link from the item selected in the listbox will either be to another web page, a PDF or open a folder for user file selection.

So for example, assume I have the following names in a text file:

Adams, Marty—then the link to Adams’ page or pdf or a folder to open
Brown, Kevin–then the link to Brown’s page or pdf or a folder to open
Smith, Wilber — then the link to Smith’s page or a pdf or a folder to open

Only the names display in the listbox —if the user clicks on a name–then it goes to the respective web page (i.e. I will also need the ability to link to a PDF or open a folder for user selection). All “on-going” maintenance (adding new names—deleting some too) would be done in the text file. The listbox object size would remain fixed as it was when created and would use a vertical scroll bar if needed should the list grow beyond what can displayed.

I am not opposed to buying an add-in for Web Expression4 to make this happen….but I have seen 100’s of dynamic menu generators—but nothing about a “listbox”–at least that can be used with Web Expression4. I should mention the listbox will be used on my employer’s intranet site only and all employees use IE 7 or IE 8 as the web broswer.

Any and suggestions are welcome. Thank you for reading…
JimC

Reply | Quote

Replies

I would like to create a dynamic–one column listbox for a webpage. The listbox will populate from a text file, etc. The link from the item selected in the listbox will either be to another web page, a PDF or open a folder for user file selection.

So for example, assume I have the following names in a text file:

Adams, Marty—then the link to Adams’ page or pdf or a folder to open
Brown, Kevin–then the link to Brown’s page or pdf or a folder to open
Smith, Wilber — then the link to Smith’s page or a pdf or a folder to open

Only the names display in the listbox —if the user clicks on a name–then it goes to the respective web page (i.e. I will also need the ability to link to a PDF or open a folder for user selection). All “on-going” maintenance (adding new names—deleting some too) would be done in the text file. The listbox object size would remain fixed as it was when created and would use a vertical scroll bar if needed should the list grow beyond what can displayed.

When you cross-post on different forums, it is polite to provide cross-links so people know whether you might already have received an answer.

The formal HTML control for a listbox is a with a size attribute (size=”numberOfRows”). If you omit the size attribute, it’s a drop-down.

Consider, however, the alternative of using an unordered list element (

) in a scrolling box. You can style a list with no bullets so it will look like a listbox, but you have a lot more formatting flexibility with a list than with a . I think also attaching links is much more straightforward, and you can turn off the link’s text-decoration so it looks like a regular list.

You may need to do a little ASP or ASP.Net or other coding to import a file and/or access a database. Plain old HTML files are not that interactive. Well, you could deliver the page “empty” and use client-side javascript to pull down the data and fill in the listbox, but it’s more reliable to just serve the page fully formed.

And I should add: Expression Web probably has some controls pre-built, but these might assume you are storing your list in SQL Server, which seems like overkill for this application…

Reply | Quote

When you cross-post on different forums, it is polite to provide cross-links so people know whether you might already have received an answer. QUOTE]

Sorry about that…I didn’t want to create any competition or ill-will between the forums…as I know that some moderators work both forums. Somehow, I thought it unethical to state in each forum that I posted in the other…again, sorry for my omisssion.

Oh, and thanks for the advice…greatly appreciated. JimC

Reply | Quote