Dr. Henry's Emergency Lessons for People!

You know on-paper forms where they have checkboxes? "Did you hear about us from A? B? C? Other?" Then there's a place to write in what "Other" means? That's what I'm doing, except I'm doing it online.

view plainprint?

1. <fieldset id="sample">  
2.     <select name="test" id="test" size="4">         <option> Foo </option>         <option> Bar </option>         <option> Blee </option>         <option> Other </option>    </select>  
3.     <span class="other"></span>  
4. </fieldset>  

              Foo           Bar           Blee           Other     
    

That's the roughness. I'm trying to make a general solution, so I have a span after every select. And here's where the problem comes.

I want to watch every select click. That's easy in jQuery. I want to then check to see if the value is now 'other'. That also is easy.

view plainprint?

1. $( 'select' ).click( function() {  
2.     var strVal   = $( this ).attr('value') ;  
3.     if ( strVal == 'Other' ) {  
4.         ...  
5.         }  
6.     else {  
7.         ...  
8.         }  
9.     }) ;  

    $( 'select' ).click( function() {
        var strVal   = $( this ).attr('value') ;
        if ( strVal == 'Other' ) {
            ...
            }
        else {
            ...
            }
        }) ;

What I want to do now is create an input box to put the "other" text in. And if I could do it in an object-y kind of way, I can.

view plainprint?

1. $( 'select' ).click( function() {  
2.     var strVal   = $( this ).attr('value') ;  
3.     var strOther = $( this ).parent().attr('id') + '_other' ;  
4.     var strHTML = '<input type="text" name="' + strOther + '">'  
5.     if ( strVal == 'Other' ) {  
6.         $( this ).parent().children('.other').html( strHTML ) ;  
7.         }  
8.     else {  
9.         $( this ).parent().children('.other').html('') ;  
10.         }  
11.     }) ;  

    $( 'select' ).click( function() {
        var strVal   = $( this ).attr('value') ;
        var strOther = $( this ).parent().attr('id') + '_other' ;
        var strHTML = ''
        if ( strVal == 'Other' ) {
            $( this ).parent().children('.other').html( strHTML ) ;
            }
        else {
            $( this ).parent().children('.other').html('') ;
            }
        }) ;

But wouldn't it be better to do things with a more object-like interface? I fill one of those selects dynamically, with code that works like this:

view plainprint?

1. clearSelectBox( document.getElementById('test') ) ;  
2.   
3. function fillSelectBox_SOLiD ( obj_sel ) {  
4.     var valueArray = new Array( '1 cell' , '4 cell' , '8 cell' , 'Other' ) ;  
5.     for ( var i = 0 ; i < valueArray.length ; i++ ) {  
6.         var obj_option = document.createElement('option') ;  
7.         obj_option.text = valueArray[i] ;  
8.         try {  
9.             obj_sel.add( obj_option , null ) ;  
10.             // standards compliant; doesn't work in IE  
11.             }  
12.         catch(ex) {  
13.             obj_sel.add( obj_option ) ;  
14.             // IE only  
15.             }  
16.         }  
17.     }  

clearSelectBox( document.getElementById('test') ) ;

function fillSelectBox_SOLiD ( obj_sel ) {
    var valueArray = new Array( '1 cell' , '4 cell' , '8 cell' , 'Other' ) ;
    for ( var i = 0 ; i < valueArray.length ; i++ ) {
        var obj_option = document.createElement('option') ;
        obj_option.text = valueArray[i] ;
        try {
            obj_sel.add( obj_option , null ) ;
            // standards compliant; doesn't work in IE
            }
        catch(ex) {
            obj_sel.add( obj_option ) ;
            // IE only
            }
        }
    }

I would much rather create the input by saying something like var newInput = document.createElement('input') than just writing the HTML, but until I can do something like that in JS, I will keep as is.

Any pointers?