Creating a new drop down menu when an option in an existing one is chosen

[BarrettChamberlain]

I’m using Coldfusion 9,0,0,251028 on Windows 7 64-bit, with a Microsoft Access 97 database. 

I’m having a problem with using a drop-down menu to create another one below it once a certain option is selected

(in this case, the option named “Breaking News”, which has an id of 31).

What event trigger should I use to create a drop-down menu underneath the first one when “Breaking News” is selected? 

Should I be using Javascript for something like this, or can Coldfusion handle it?

Here’s the code:

<cfquery name="get_info" datasource="#db#">
select * from lists
order by department asc, list asc
</cfquery>

<div align="left">

          <select name="list">

                 <option value="-1" selected> --------------------------------------  

                 <cfoutput query="get_info" group="department">

                        <cfoutput group="list">

             <cfif list neq "Breaking News Cell Phone">

                     <option value="#id#">#list#

             </cfif>

                        </cfoutput>

              <option value="-1"> --------------------------------------

                 </cfoutput>

          </select>

</div>

[Dan_Bracuk]

If it were me, I'd use javascript.  The event would be the onChange of the first drop down.

Depending on the details, I might use ColdFusion to create the content of the second drop down.

[BarrettChamberlain]

Depending on the details, I might use ColdFusion to create the content of the second drop down.

The second drop-down is supposed to be an expiration date that gets attached to the message so it can be self-removing.

The first drop-down is to specify a category for a message to be sent out on.

In this case, the only one that needs the secondary expiration drop-down is a single category (Breaking News),

so all other options on the drop-down would have to not trigger the expiration date drop-down showing.

In that situation, would you use ColdFusion to create the second drop down?

[Dan_Bracuk]

The circumstances under which I would use use Cold Fusion to create the second drop down include:

involves data selected from a database

or

has a lot of elements.

or

many other things I can't currently think of.

The technique is:

Use create the dropdown inside cfsavecontent tags.

Use either cfwddx or toScript() to convert the html to json.

While I've not done it with a drop down, I have done it with a series of checkboxes.

[BarrettChamberlain]

Solved by using function:

checkBreak()

{var theMenu=document.getElementById("exp_select").style;

if (document.asdf.list.selectedIndex == 1)

{theMenu.visibility="visible" }

else

{theMenu.visibility="hidden" }

}

and setting the drop-down menu in css as

#exp_select

{
visibility: hidden;
   
}

Thank you for the help, Dan.