Background
I have this form that uses javascript exclusively to search through ~5k entries (suppliers) and populate a select dropdown from them (factories, ~10k entries). Right now, it's a javascript-required form. I'd like to make it so that javascript errors no longer render the form unusable, but the number of entries and the sequential nature of the entries leave me without a idiomatic way to provide just a basic html version.
The Issues
Sequential/hierarchical dropdowns
An example dropdown where sequence is important: http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/selectcontent2.shtml
So that shows "filtering" of sequential/hierarchical dropdown content, where the selections in the second City dropdown get filtered based on the selections in the first Country dropdown. But take away the javascript, and it could instantly become a mess. Madrid in the USA? Berlin in France? The sequence becomes corrupted.
Dropdowns that have huge numbers of options
If you have a select dropdown with 10k possible options, it's pretty easy to filter/search through them with javascript. Dealing with those options without javacript, on the other hand, is much more difficult.
How do you provide your users with all of the possibilities when just loading all the options them all would blow up their browser?
Possible Solutions
Sequential/Hierarchical Select boxes:
- Server-side 2-part forms.
- ?Select option groups?
- ???
Selects with huge numbers of options:
- Server-side 2-part search forms.
- Server-side text search matching of entry names.
- ???
Simple links to resourceful solutions welcome.