I believe that what you really are wanting to do is use the "<OPTGROUP>" tag within HTML's "<select>" tag. This allows you to create a two level indented list of categories and subcategories in a select list.
Unfortunately Struts does not directly support this. I asked about this a couple of months ago - and got no response at all. I imagine the lack of support is for two reasons: 1) The data structure to support it would be "slightly" more complicated - a collection of category object, each category object would need a few properties and a collection of (sub)category objects. 2) The browser support for OPTGROUP has been spotty until recently. Under Windows it was not supported in MSIE until version 5.5 (IIRC) and with Netscape support started in version 6 (again, IIRC). However the <OPTGROUP> is supposed to degrade gracefully in older browsers and still be usable - not so sure about that. If the browser support is not an issue, then you can still OPTGROUP with struts - IF you are willing to do a little scripting (or even better create your own custom tag). We do and are very pleased with the results, although we have had to make some minor adjustments to support different browsers on different platforms. Here are a couple of references that should be useful. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#edef-OPTGROUP http://tagsnstyles.host.sk/elements/optgroup.html Here is a snippet of the code that I use in my JSP to create the indented select lists (I did change variable names to be a little more general and removed a few complexities). I ended up using a combination of JSTL and JSP scriptlets (not pretty, but it works). If we decide to use this on a more widespread basis,a custom taglib is definitely in order. I've included two versions, the first only works with Windows and MSIE 6.0, Netscape 7.x and Mozilla Firebird (may work with other browsers, but not tested). The second also works with Macintosh MSIE 5.1 - turns out that Mac MSIE 5.1 has quite a few differences - you would think both being written by MS, they might ... I know, the problem is I "thought" - :(. Have not had a chance to test under Macintosh Safari, maybe it will not be so picky. Anyway, this is not elegant at all, but it works and the effect is quite nice. SNIPPET - Supports Windows only (see above) <hmtl:select property="subCategoryId" indexed="true" styleId="newsubCategoryId"> <optgroup label=""> <option value="" label=""> </option> </optgroup> <c:set var="prevCategory" value=""/> <c:forEach items="${Collection_SubCategory}" var="subCat"> <c:set var="currentCategory" value="${subCat.subject_name}"/> <c:set var="currentSubCategory" value="${subCat.name}"/> <c:if test="${prevCategory != currentCategory}"> <c:if test="${!empty prevCategory}"> </optgroup> </c:if> </c:if> <c:if test="${prevCategory != currentCategory && !empty currentSubCategory}"> <optgroup label="<c:out value="${currentCategory}"/>"> </c:if> <c:if test="${currentSubCategory != ''}"> <option value="<c:out value="${subCat.id}"/>" label="<c:out value="${currentSubCategory}"/>" <c:if test="${subCat.id == categoryForm.subCategoryId}"> selected="true" </c:if> ><c:out value="${currentSubCategory}"/></option> </c:if> <c:set var="prevCategory" value="${subCat.subject_name}"/> </c:forEach> </optgroup> </hmtl:select> SNIPPET - Supports Windows and Mac (see above) <hmtl:select property="subCategoryId" indexed="true" styleId="newsubCategoryId"> <% if ( request.getHeader("user-agent").toLowerCase().indexOf("win") > -1 ) { %> <optgroup label=""> <option value="" label=""> </option> </optgroup> <% } else { %> <option value=""> </option> <% } %> <c:set var="prevCategory" value=""/> <c:forEach items="${Collection_SubCategory}" var="subCat"> <c:set var="currentCategory" value="${subCat.subject_name}"/> <c:set var="currentSubCategory" value="${subCat.name}"/> <% if ( request.getHeader("user-agent").toLowerCase().indexOf("win") > -1 ) { %> <c:if test="${prevCategory != currentCategory}"> <c:if test="${!empty prevCategory}"> </optgroup> </c:if> </c:if> <c:if test="${prevCategory != currentCategory && !empty currentSubCategory}"> <optgroup label="<c:out value="${currentCategory}"/>"> </c:if> <% } else { %> <c:if test="${prevCategory != currentCategory && !empty currentSubCategory}"> <option value="<c:out value="${currentCategory}"/>" readonly="true" style="font-weight: bold;"> <c:out value="${currentCategory}"/> </option> </c:if> <% } %> <c:if test="${currentSubCategory != ''}"> <% if ( request.getHeader("user-agent").toLowerCase().indexOf("win") > -1 ) { %> <option value="<c:out value="${subCat.id}"/>" label="<c:out value="${currentSubCategory}"/>" <c:if test="${subCat.id == categoryForm.subCategoryId}"> selected="true" </c:if> ><c:out value="${currentSubCategory}"/></option> <% } else { %> <option value="<c:out value="${subCat.id}"/>" <c:if test="${subCat.id == categoryForm.subCategoryId}"> selected="true" </c:if> > <% if ( request.getHeader("user-agent").toLowerCase().indexOf("msie 5.0; mac_powerpc") > -1 ) { %> <% } else { %> .... <% } %> <c:out value="${currentCategory}"/> - <c:out value="${currentSubCategory}"/></option> <% } %> </c:if> <c:set var="prevCategory" value="${subCat.subject_name}"/> </c:forEach> <% if ( request.getHeader("user-agent").toLowerCase().indexOf("win") > -1 ) { %> </optgroup> <% } %> </hmtl:select> Hope this helps - Richard -----Original Message----- From: Sethi, Mandeep [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 7:39 AM To: 'Struts Users Mailing List' Subject: <HTML:SELECT> giving headaches Hi Everyone I'm working on displaying a collection using <HTML:SELECT>. I'm our case we have a collection of value objects in session scope ,so for e.g in our case we have a collection of Category in session scope ,Which further has a collection of subCategory and I need to display them in a select list in way like Category name1 ...subCategory name1 ...subCategory name2 Category name2 ...subCategory name1 ...subCategory name2 class Category() { String name; String id; Collection subCategory; } Class SubCategory{ String subName; String subID; } So far I'm successfull with first part that is displaying Category name with their id as value ,my code is <html:select property="availableList" size="18" multiple="true"> <html:options collection="availableFieldList" property="lookupType" labelProperty="lookupTypeLabel"/> </html:select> where availableFieldList is the collection of Category , Can anyone suggest few ideas for my second step of displaying subcategories too in required fashion, Thank You **************************************************************************** This email may contain confidential material. If you were not an intended recipient, Please notify the sender and delete all copies. We may monitor email to and from our network. **************************************************************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
