Advice to implement list of items

[jamin20]

Hi there,
Could experimented persons advise me on the following issue (piece of vb code would also be appreciated ;-)?
I have to implement a facility that:
1. allows user to choose one item, at a time, from a hierarchical list of items (ID + designation )
2. will be part of a template field (I was thinking of a listview?)
3. will have small area to display

tia
Jamin

 

[jbenson001]

Can you just use a simple listbox, or are you displaying lots of choices that the user can choose from?

 

[jamin20]

Hi there !
the point is that, there are few thowsand items with about 5 possible sublevels.
User has to pick an item to which some other data will be added, this "other data" takes a lot of pace in my UI.
I wanted to make it easy to select an item.

thx.

 

[jbenson001]

Then I would would make then filter the list first. Displaying a few thousand, even if it is rolled up is still too much for the user to go through. I would make the have to enter at least on filter criteria first.

 

[NESWalt]

Think of your data as a tree... each of your "sub categories" are "branches"... so to find a particular leaf, you have to first select the first branch from the trunk of the tree. Then as you move closer, you select another branch and so forth until the only left are the leaves to select from. You just have to make sure your data is in a format that is conducive... if it's just one big long list, that won't work too well.

Walt
IT Consulting for Robert Half

http://roberthalftechnology.com

 

[jbenson001]

Even in a tree structure, having too many items is not user friendly. Trying to navigate to where you want to be can be overwhelming. Also, if the OP wants them to select multiple items, a treeview is not a good idea. You need to implement some sort of filter to narrow down the list first. Make the user enter some required filter criteria first.

 

[NESWalt]

Agreed, but the tree is still better than strictly a list...

To OP:
Go to nVidia's website and look for a driver for a video card... see how they do it (w/ filters I mean)

Walt
IT Consulting for Robert Half

http://roberthalftechnology.com