Keeping values already selected

[huadba]

I am a bit of a newby here, so thanks in advance for your patience.

 

I have a form with multiple drop down boxes.  The content of these boxes are driven from different tables.  Users can then select options and update a master profile.  The values selected are POSTED to this master profile.  Once in a great while a user doesn't find a selection on one of the secondary tables meeting their needs in the drop down box and they add a value to one of these secondary tables.  I set up a hyperlink to a secondary page to insert a value in the the secondary table.  Once the new value is inserted the user is then directed back to the master page to complete the update process. 

 

The problem is if a user has already selected a number of options and then directed away, they lose all of the information they have already selected.  Is there a good way to "keep" the information already selected? 

 

I do not want the user to have to input information again if they are asked to navigate away to add to a secondary table.

 

Thanks,

[btherl]

If you open a pop-up window, you can handle things there, and then just close that window.  Another option is to use ajax to handle everything for the secondary table.  In both cases you can use javascript to update the master page if necessary.

[huadba]

Guru:  Thanks for the reply.  I was thinking of this as an option, but didn't know if there was a better way to do this via php programming.  Would you recommend ajax over java?

[mikesta707]

I personally dislike java applets because I think they are slow and hog resources. Also, although most computers have the JVM installed, some don't, while all modern browsers (IE, Chrome, FF, Opera, etc.) have Javascript. The downside to AJAX though is that Javascript can be turned off. I personally would go with AJAX, but if you are more comfortable with java go with that