How can this be done?

[acc]

In my form, I need to allow users to select from a pop-up menu a long list
of product codes stored in the database (up to, say, 50000 records) and
display the product code's description immediately (without long delay) when
the user select a code so that the user can continue the input of other
fields.

Typically (e.g. for country list), this is done by the server generating
html <select> tag enclosing all the product codes. However, if there are
50000 records, how can this huge list be downloaded to the browser
efficiently (without a long delay for dialup line)? Is there any more
elegant way to do this?

Also, how can i display the product code's decription immediately (without
the long delay of making another request to the server) when the user scroll
through my product code list?

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

In my form, I need to allow users to select from a pop-up menu a long
list of product codes stored in the database (up to, say, 50000
records)

Are you serious?

and display the product code's description immediately

You can't do that in HTML anyway, except in the sense of using a
title="..." attribute, which _might_ be implemented as a tooltip.

However, if there are 50000 records, how can this huge list be
downloaded to the browser efficiently

It cannot. But the worst thing is making the user work with such a
monstrously long menu.

Why don't you simply let the user _type_ the product code?