UBrowser and multiple level vocabularies

I now see how uBrowser works, apparently it displays the vocab tree in the far-left select list and nodes to the right. We're looking for a solution similar to the Mac OSX Finder, where clicking a term in one select list displays its subterms in the list to the right of it, clicking one of those subterms updates the third list etc, adding new lists dynamically as necessary. Is there any ready-made solution like this available?

I'm not sure of any ready made solutions... I know there's a module called activeselect that seems to have this sort of progressive display, but I think it would still require custom coding. I realized after I posted that a way to actually open and close parent terms would be awesome, and that may happen for Ubercart in the future (which means it would happen for uBrowser)... I'd be sure to let you know, but so until then I'm moving this to a feature request. : )

Obviously, if someone else gets a patch to do that, I'd be willing to commit.

Cool! I read about ActiveSelect, knowing it's been a part of the JSTools package for a while. There are a couple of posts about people trying to do exactly this:
http://drupal.org/node/74747
http://drupal.org/node/92521

Assume we have a set number of lists, to avoid having to add DOM objects dynamically, and basing it on uBrowser, this doesn't seem super hard to implement. I'm going to try doing it myself when time permits. Amazes me that no one has made a module for this because there are so many cases where it would be useful, it really offers an intuitive way of browsing terms. Here's an example of the same interface:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/

I'm amazed as well. Here we have Drupal's taxonomy system, yet there's no convenient way to select dependant, hierarchical terms for content types - at least not when one is dealing with a ton of terms (like states -> cities). Currently, if I want to have users write restaurant reviews, and if I wish to categorize them by state and city, users will have to choose not only from a list of 50 states, but also from a list of perhaps a few thousand cities. Being able to filter down would be much more logical, yet other than the extremely unstable category.module w/ active select, there's nothing close to a solution for this. If there is, please let me know.

QUESTION: I'm a few days away from starting my build, so I haven't given it a run through... will this module do what I am seeking, like if I am to have a user create content, they will be able via Ubrowser to filter my list of states, select a city (from the filtered list as per state), and submit the content? Additionally, can both the state and city terms be associated with that content/node/story/?

I ask because it appears I am going to go to great lengths to avoid the "select-from-thousands-of-terms" categorization. If this module can do that - even on just 2-tier select, I'd be able to shave eons off of my development time while also providing a better user experience.

Right now, this module only lets you select nodes associated with terms in a vocabulary. Term hierarchy within the vocabulary is represented the Drupal way (inefficient for you) with dashes to indicate depth. So, it won't work for you.

I do plan on writing a tutorial on programming a progressive select like you're talking about, but I won't have the time at least for a week, probably two. I'd love to see it get done as well, and I'm pretty sure I can take and modify the uBrowser to make it happen. In fact, I know I can do it.

In the meantime, you might consider free tagging w/ autocomplete... let people just pick a state from one vocabulary and let them specify a city by typing it in... with autocomplete, they could see a list of city names as they're typing it out to help prevent misspellings (but it's not a surefire plug against that).

Otherwise, I imagine you're going to need one stinking huge vocabulary with a single parent hierarchy with each state at the top level and all the cities below them.

rszrama: Cool, I'm too busy at the moment to be able to spend any time rewriting uBrowser. But I agree with you, just looking at its current implementation, this shouldn't be that hard to do.

We can't use auto-completion as several countries have regions with the same name, users must therefore be able to drill down starting with a country and then narrow it down.

If the functionality of uBrowser ie expanded into a taxonomy progressive select mechanism, it will be a huge hit in the Drupal community. All one has to do is look at all of the developers who are at wits end trying to stabilize their installations/implementations of the category.module (w/ active select). Many of these folks who get this setup working reliably have accepted the fact that they just aren't going to be able to perform simple upgrades or use many of the available modules crafted for Drupal.

While only two tiers would make this product great, 3 or more would be exponentially better. To be able to create/edit a node and progressively select "USA" from menu1, "New Jersey" from menu2, then "CityName" from menu3, and then "Restaurants" from menu4, and have all those terms associated with that node... it would be nothing short of innovative.

Feel free to tell me what my non-coding butt can do to help facilitate development.

FYI: Here's a dependent dropdown module that does not utilize taxonomy, as understood from this thread.

Subscribing...

I think Hierarchical Select is the way to go. I'm going to close this issue.