User interaction, adding to drop down menu

[faithingod1970]

I am trying to create a drop down box there an authorized user on an intranet page can add a folder or item to a drop down box similar to how a user on Yahoo Mail can add folders to the "move" drop down box. Can I do this with CSS? Pretty sure I cannot with HTML but not sure. My problem is I have a restriction of not using PHP or JavaScript. Is this possible or do I have to use one of those? Need guidance on where to look. Thanks. meanwhile, still researching.

[JorgeM]

If you require client side interaction, that's mainly going to involve javascript even though CSS3 and HTML5 offers some client side interaction and dynamics/effects.

No matter what you do client side, at some point you are going to have to interact server side to process something.

I'm not clear enough on exactly what you are trying to do or what you are working with to provide better guidance.

[faithingod1970]

Yahoo mail has an option of sendng mail to folders, and in that drop down menu is the option to create a new folder. I am trying to do something similar, to have a menu or drop box where the user can add options to the menu or drop box list.

[iamthwee]

Here's a few pointers, you can't create a folder without a server side language you just can't. But I'm unsure as to whether you actually want to do this. Most mail is stored in the database as an entry, the folders you see are merely visual representations of this and aren't ACTUAL folders. For example, I might tag an email as 'important' which gets shown in the important folder. The folder doesn't actually exist, it is just the database entry for that email adds a tag 'important' next to it, so when it renders out to HTML you can show it inside a folder called 'important.'

And although you can create a drop down menus with just css, by not using javascript you will come across a lot of restrictions. Not to mention most good drop downs in css are actually written in css3 and HTML5 which not all browsers support happily (lower versions of internet explorer.)

[faithingod1970]

The folder was just an example, here is an illustration of what I am trying to do:
Start with this:
Menu
option 1
option 2
option 3
add option

so that if a person select add option box pops up and they add "option a" then next time they use the drop box we get

Menu
option 1
option 2
option 3
option a
add option

[iamthwee]

Store the user selected options in a database then retrieve those options when they do a page refresh, or use ajax. But seeing as you are asking about not wanting to use javascript or php that could be an issue -impossible.

[faithingod1970]

So Javascript can do this? have JavaScript book and trying to figure out since it as been a few years since I studied it.

[iamthwee]

I would say you need php as well, different users may have different menus, this is where your sessionid comes into play.

Possibly you get around that by storing info in a cookie but I wouldn't.

[faithingod1970]

Cookies are not in play, this is not an internet web page but intranet pages based on HTML. The idea is that my programmer creates Java programming to access MySQL data and I create the intranet pages. The problem is my programmer refuses to use PHP or JavaScript yet wants me to create the drop box that will actually get data from the database via Java but first I need to create the dropboxes. Not sure how to explain because when I said HTML could not do it, he said "well how does Yahoo do it on the mail?" Any suggestions on what to say to him? Where to find the research? digging into JavaScript again but finding suggestions for PHP!

[_neonyx_]

Not entirely sure if this is the kind of thing you're after, but try this code example and see maybe?

http://www.codecademy.com/ultrabob/codebits/R53ZAh/edit

Hope it helps :)