web drop-down combo box with large list of records

Question

The amount of records to be displayed in drop-down combo boxes affect the performance of internet applications. What are the current best practices to solve this problem? Are paginated drop-downs the only solution? What is considered a large list? >100 or > 1000?

Answer 1

Offer a search filter.

You might have a textbox where people can type in some text and you do an AJAX callback to the server to find the best matches. Like the way google search makes suggestions.

You could have an html pop-up where you show a list of 10 or 20 results, and allow people to page through it with AJAX callbacks for paging.

Answer 2

If the records in the dropdown can be grouped I typically prefer the multiple drop down approach.

Have one drop down filter the group -> the next dropbox is populated with only the records that correspond to that group.

Answer 3

I don't know what language are you using, but in anycase this can be nice hint

http://www.filamentgroup.com/examples/menus/ipod.php

btw, 100 entries are almost normal just like a "Select Contry"! but 1000 entries it's not large is Huge! ;-)

if you have to drop-down something that user well know, as country or other thing! you can use something like Autosuggest dropdown!

Answer 4

You can use javascript and perform an httprequest to retrieve data to a mirror page and set the xml data to your combobox manually. Text data load faster than direct binding connection in server.