<select> & <option> question

[Mike Albrecht]

Hi folks,

I posted this on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html a few days back but
didn't get any response - maybe wrong group or I committed some usenet
faux pas I'm unaware of. So... sorry if you're seeing this again.
Perhaps there's not enough description or maybe a different group would
be better. Any suggestions are gratefully accepted.

Scenario: A form on a web page that passes values to a dll. We want the
user to be able to choose among several locations. The value of the
variable that gets passed is a 3-letter code which is pretty meaningless
to the user. We want them to see what the value means to them. Here is
what we have now:

<p>Location:</p>
<select name="NVTGC" size="1">
<option selected>CGIFN=^VARNVTGC^</option>
<option value ="PUL">Location A</option>
<option value ="PUL">Location B</option>
<option value ="OWN">Location C</option>
<option value ="HSL">Location D</option>
<option value ="AGS">Location E</option>
<option value ="EDU">Location F</option>
<option value ="ARC">Location G</option>
<option value ="MSC">Location H</option>
</select>

When the user initially registered for this 'service' they chose one of
these. If they ever want to change it, they go to the page that includes
the above html. What they see is:

Location: AGS

Which, of course, is correct since they chose location E and if they
refresh the page they see:

Location: Location E

(which I'm not sure I understand)

What I would like is for them to see the option value rather than the
'value' string. Not sure if it is possible.

Users are using a wide variety of browsers though we recommend NS 6, IE
5 (and later for each of these as well as equivalent versions of other
browsers)

Any ideas are appreciated.

Mike
--
Mike Albrecht
Interlibrary Loan
Washington State University Libraries
Holland/New Library Room 101
Pullman, WA 99164-5610
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu
(509) 335-5517
(509) 335-0934 (FAX)
--------------------------------------
"... in circles 'round the Sun, doing rings around the Pole ..."
-- Gordon Lightfoot
"Stars appear and the shadows are a-fallin' ..."
-- Buddy Holly
'Tis the perception of the beautiful,
A fine extension of the faculties,
Platonic, universal, wonderful,
Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies,
Without which life would be extremely dull.
-- Lord Byron

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

I posted this on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html a few days
back but didn't get any response

Actually you did. The core of the response is repeated here for
convenience:
"Do you have an URL to look at?"

You didn't answer that. And it's hard to guess what you are really
trying to do. It sounds like you actually have a programming problem,
not an HTML problem.

 

[Mike Albrecht]

Actually you did. The core of the response is repeated here for
convenience:
"Do you have an URL to look at?"

You didn't answer that. And it's hard to guess what you are really
trying to do. It sounds like you actually have a programming problem,
not an HTML problem.

Hi Jukka,

My apologies. I have a news server that is oftimes not too reliable and
some messages don't appear so I didn't think I'd gotten a response.

I believe, like you, that this is a programming issue and not HTML. The
DLL that 'handles' the forms is a commercial product and all we can do
is have the HTML forms pass the variables to it that it needs and the
forms display the values of the variables that the DLL provides.

For now, I'm going to take it up with the company producing the
software. Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,

Mike

--
Mike Albrecht
Interlibrary Loan
Washington State University Libraries
Holland/New Library Room 101
Pullman, WA 99164-5610
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu
(509) 335-5517
(509) 335-0934 (FAX)
--------------------------------------
"... in circles 'round the Sun, doing rings around the Pole ..."
-- Gordon Lightfoot
"Stars appear and the shadows are a-fallin' ..."
-- Buddy Holly
'Tis the perception of the beautiful,
A fine extension of the faculties,
Platonic, universal, wonderful,
Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies,
Without which life would be extremely dull.
-- Lord Byron