How to get a design concept working

[jwhite68]

Problem
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I have a form that is organised as follows, with section 1 capturing the main info for the form to be submitted-  and section 2 which is independent and is intended to display information from one of three categories chosen by one of the 3 image buttons:

Section 1

{ content that is submitted on form }

Section 2

[ image button 1 ]  [ image button 2 ] [ image button 3]        { drop down list v}

Hyperlink 1 [ count of records ]  Hyperlink 2 [count of records ] etc…


[u][color=red]Idea for processing section 2[/color][/u]

The idea is that the selected item in the drop down list, together with the press of image button 1,2 or 3, will retrieve a list of different hyperlinks and a count (in brackets) of how many records there are in the database that have the category selected (represented by the image button) and the drop down list entry.

But when the whole form is initially displayed, it will have a default button and default drop down box entry set, to display the associated hyperlinks.

For example:

[  classic cars  ]  [  sports cars  ]  [b][  saloon cars  ][/b]      [    red    [v]

Ford Fiesta [ 3]    Ford Sierra [  30]  etc etc


Here, if ’saloon cars’ is selected, that option stays highlighted, and pressing it uses the selected option in the drop down (‘red’ in this case) to influence the ’hyperlinks’ below.  So it retrieves the saloon cars, that are red in colour and displays them in the list of hyperlinks below, with a count of how many red cars of that type are in the database.  If you then move to the drop down box and select a different colour, eg ‘blue’ it will refresh the list of cars only showing blue cars (of the type selected) and a count of the number of blue cars.

Obviously I need to get the links with different types of cars by colour without reloading the page because I do not want the content of the top form to be changed. This hyperlinks code can be pre-generated and switched upon click on the image buttons. My problem is how to make those links actually count records by colour (drop down) and how do I make it so that when clicked, they call the script for listing, passing the value of the drop down box.

If we have simple link <a href=”listcars.php?cartype=1&car=12”>Ford Fiesta[3]</a>
Then colour will not be passed to the listing script. If hyperlink is enhanced to submit the form with this drop-down in it, then how will the cartype and car be passed?

I am not sure if I was able to explain properly but my main problem comes down to:

1. Generating and displaying the links with numbers of cars by type/color
2. Submitting all needed parameters to the listing form.

[fenway]

This seems like more of a scripting issue rather than HTML.