Multicolumn Dropdown jQuery Plug-in Released!

Posted by Dan on Jun 18, 2008 @ 11:49 AM

Back in April, I posted a preview of a multicolumn dropdown plug-in I was developing for a project at work. Well today we finally officially released the mcDropdown plug-in. I was hoping to release the plug-in sooner, but other projects took precedence and releasing it just got delayed.

I'm really proud of the plug-in and think it provides a really unique form control.

Here's a list of the features:

  • Creates a multi-column hierarchical select UI component
  • Binds a text input field or div element to a list element (included nested lists)
  • Menus are automatically split into columns as needed
  • Menus are positioned to always stay on the screen
  • Autocomplete keyboard entry (only valid options are allowed)
  • Menu automatically scrolls into viewport when opened

You can view a live example over at the plug-in page.

mcDropdown jQuery Plug-in

If you like what you see, make sure to digg it.

Categories: JavaScript, HTML/ColdFusion, jQuery

5 Comments

  • Patrick Whittingham's Gravatar
    Patrick Whittingham
    Dan -

     I like this multi-column dropdown. Is it possible to create a custom tag in which one would create the unordered list in JavaScript instead of using HTML? Is this license ok for an intranet use?
  • Dan G. Switzer, II's Gravatar
    Dan G. Switzer, II
    @Patrick:

    Anything's possible. We currently use a custom tag to generate all the required HTML and JavaScript. Personally, if you're going to wrap all the functionality into a custom tag, I'd stick with generating the unordered list as HTML. Depending on the depth of your tree, it could take significant time for the browser to render a large list. Generating the HTML outright will speed things up a lot.
  • mario's Gravatar
    mario
    i like this plug in ...and as a newbee i would like to know (if you could post a code example) how to make to show content
    for example if i choose Arts & Humanities: Photography: Digital how should i make to show a content of it and how should i do this?
    its basic question never the less...

    thx!
  • Dan G. Switzer, II's Gravatar
    Dan G. Switzer, II
    @Mario:

    See this thread for information on using the select event--which is what you'd use to trigger some action when the control changes values:

    http://blog.pengoworks.com/index.cfm/2008/6/26/mcD...
  • mario's Gravatar
    mario
    thx! :-)

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