Search for good (network) user interface templates for multi-selection from a large (100+) list

Question

We have an application in which we record one-many mapping of values, and the “many” side contains more than 100 options. A simple select list will not work because ctrl + click is too fragile for this user community. This will be done in ASP.NET, so any pointers to existing controls for this purpose will be greatly appreciated.

The two main rivals are:

• scroll scroll list - display about 10 options and skip up and down to check the options you need.

• available compared to selected lists. Two adjacent lists, available options on the left, selected options on the right, with some buttons for moving items forward and backward. (Any ASP controls for this?)

Any other ideas come to mind?

Thanks!

Answer 1

How about a tooltip so that they can start typing and you’ll see options depending on what they’re typing?

You can display the entire list in the tag cloud so that if they want, they can select tags, and the tooltip will be automatically filled with what they select.

If the proposal field is not viable, I would go with a tag cloud and a disabled text field (or any other editable text field, even a label) to show the options selected from the tag cloud.

It can also save you a lot of vertical space compared to traditional listings.

Answer 2

After reading your question again, I would go with two lists with buttons for adding and removing selected items.

If the one-to-many options go deep into many sub-levels, what about the ASP.NET TreeView control? You can add a check box for each leaf node in the TreeView and, possibly, a check box in the parent node, which selects all the child nodes during validation.

Answer 3

When you have a 100+ list (it can be 100000+), it’s hard to find specific items using a sentence. I tried and the users were disoriented. The list contains 100+ and more should have some filters for the exact result for selecting and selecting an item.

I think that the grid with filters and the field with the selected elements and the “Add / Remove” option will be best suited for this scenario.

but

I'm still looking for the perfect interface design for this.