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You will be afraid, very afraid, of this code I spent the last hour banging out and testing. It works, which is the most frightening thing.

I just wrote this because I had some once off drop down code that I wrote, and I just realised for this new project I'm starting, I'll need to use drop downs more regularly to customise the results of some screens.

Features: simplifies generation of drop downs, remembers past selections using cookies, code is fairly brief and should be easy to understand. Selecting a drop down option forces a page refresh under all the browsers I've tried. Also uses the CGI classes exclusively for HTML generation. MakeDropDowns::addDropDown takes four arguments.

A short, one word descriptive name which will name the form and the cookie.

A full, descriptive name used in the form.

An anon hash with key value pairs used as the selection options. The key can be used with CGI::getparam to fetch what the selection was.

Finally, a default value for the form.

Example usage:


my $dropDowns = new MakeDropDowns($cgi);

$dropDowns->addDropDown("date", "Please Select Date",
                        {
                            today        => 'Today',
                            yesterday  => 'Yesterday',
                            everything => 'All Days',
                            lastweek   => 'Previous 7 Days',
                            thismonth  => 'This Month',
                        },
                        'today');

$dropDowns->addDropDown("type", "Please select display",
                        {
                            errors => "Errors",
                            everything => "Everything",
                            completed => "Completed",
                        },
                        'errors');

print "
<html>
<head>
<script language='javascript'>
" . $dropDowns->getJavascript . "
</script>
</head>
";

# and then in the place you want them rendered:

print $dropDowns->getHtml;
[download]

Updated: s/$cgi/$self->{cgi}/g


package MakeDropDowns;

use CGI qw/-nosticky *table :all start_Tr end_Tr start_table/;
use CGI::Pretty qw/:html3/;
use POSIX;

sub new
{
    my $class = shift;
    my $cgi = shift;
    my $self = { cgi => $cgi };

    return bless($self, $class);
}

sub addDropDown
{
    my $self = shift;

    my $shortname = shift;
    my $fullname = shift;
    my $options = shift;
    my $default = shift;

    $self->{dropDowns}->{$shortname} = $options;
    $self->{defaults}->{$shortname} = $default;
    $self->{fullname}->{$shortname} = $fullname;
}

sub getHtml
{
    my $self = shift;
    
    my $htmlReturn = "";
    
    foreach my $shortname (keys %{$self->{dropDowns}})
    {
        my $cgiValue = $self->{cgi}->param($shortname);

        $cgiValue = $self->{defaults}->{$shortname} if defined $self->
+{defaults}->{$shortname};
        
        my $cookie = $self->{cgi}->cookie({name=>$shortname});
        $cgiValue = $cookie if $cookie;

        my %searchOptions = %{$self->{dropDowns}->{$shortname}};

        
        my @keylist = keys %searchOptions;

        $htmlReturn .= start_form({name=>$shortname . 'Form', method=>
+'post', action=>$self->{cgi}->url({path_info=>1})}) .
            start_table({align=>'center', cellspacing=>5, cellpadding=
+>0, border=>0}) .
            Tr(
               td(span({style=>'font-weight: bold'}, $self->{fullname}
+->{$shortname})),
               td(popup_menu({ name =>  $shortname,,
                               values => \@keylist,
                               labels => \%searchOptions,
                               onChange => "searchChanged$shortname()"
+}))
               ) .
            end_table() .
        end_form();

    }

    return $htmlReturn;
}

sub getJavascript
{
    my $self = shift;

    my $url = $self->{cgi}->url({absolute=>1});
    my $fullurl = $self->{cgi}->url({path_info=>1, query=>1});
    my @lt = localtime;
    my $time_t = POSIX::mktime(0, 0, -10, $lt[3]+1, $lt[4], $lt[5]);
    my $cookieExpiry = POSIX::strftime("%a, %d-%b-%Y %H:%M:%S GMT", lo
+caltime($time_t));

    my $output = "function setCookie(name, value, path, expires, domai
+n, secure) \n{
    var curCookie = name + \"=\" + escape(value) +
        \"; expires=$cookieExpiry\" +
        ((path) ? \"; path=\" + path : \"\") +
        ((domain) ? \"; domain=\" + domain : \"\") +
        ((secure) ? \"; secure\" : \"\");
    document.cookie = curCookie;\n}\n\n";
    
    foreach my $shortname (keys %{$self->{dropDowns}})
    {

        my $tmpUrl = $fullurl;
        $tmpUrl =~ s/\&*$shortname=\w+(\&|$)//g;
        $tmpUrl .= "?" if ($tmpUrl !~ /[?]/);

        $output .= "function searchChanged$shortname() \n{
    var Fong = document." . $shortname . "Form.$shortname" . "[documen
+t." . $shortname . "Form.$shortname.selectedIndex].value;
    setCookie(\"$shortname\", Fong, \"$url\");
    document.location.href = \"$tmpUrl&$shortname=\" + Fong; \n}\n";

    }
    
    return $output;
}

1;
[download]

In reply to MakeDropDowns using CGI by hagus

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