Ever have an HTML form with a select Menu so big that you wish you could make it easier to use? Perhaps what you need is a hierarchical select. Most software you have on your computer has the functionality: if a menu becomes too long, developers usually break it up into sub-menus for easier management. These often have multiple levels of depth - this is why they are called "Hierarchical Menus". Unfortunately, HTML does not have this nifty option. Web designers are stuck with the same old <SELECT> Menu, which can only list options linearly. There is of course the little-known <OPTGROUP> tag, but browsers choose to list all the groups in one long linear list, so there are very little actual advantages to its use...

Finally however, flooble has come up with a free javascript that will offer a solution to the problem. With our Hierarchical SELECT Menu, you can define Sub-Menus on many levels, and not still have a workable control that functions as part of an HTML form. Here's a sample:

Hierachical Select Box:

As you can see, here we have a sample Menu with 4 levels of Sub-Menus, though of course you could have more if you wished.

The best thing about it is that the menu is tied to a hidden field, so any value you select will be submitted as part of the form. Just like the traditional <SELECT> control, each option has a value that is independent of the label that the user sees. In our example Option1 through Option7 actually have values "o1" through "o7", which is what would be submitted by the form.

This script is absolutely free, and has been tested to work with Internet Explorer on Windows, Mozilla and Safari. The only limitation to the script is that it will support only one Hierarchical Select Menu per page. However, we are already hard at work on a Pro version that will allow multiple menus.

Are you intrigued by the idea of this menu? Think you can use one on your site? Well then, proceed to