Help with pattern for reusable large chooser / select

J T
Wed, 31 Aug 2005 17:19:42 -0000

I have an invoice application that requires the user to select a user object
named "creator" from a list of over 100k users. Since there are so
many users a
traditional select box with 100k options is out of the question. An AJAX enabled
select box is out of the question too due to the types of clients that will use
this application. I think it should work something like this...

-User creates invoice and fills out some fields (e.g. description)
-User clicks "select creator" link that takes them to a user select
page
-On the user select page they can type in a partial name, click submit, and the
matches are returned. When they find the one they want they click a "select
user" link. This link returns them to the invoice page, populates the
"creator"
field and keeps all of their previous edits (e.g. description).

Ideally I would like to construct this "choose user" functionality so
that it
could be reused for other applications (e.g. purchase order has a
"creator"
field as well).

Any thoughts on how to pattern this?