Convoluted "how do I make this happen online" questioncloud

1. I'm not a programmical or web-developish person. I pretty much only know HTML/CSS, which doesn't really... do... anything.

2. I want to make a filterable archive of items -- not searchable, but filterable based on certain attributes assigned to each listed item (e.g., an archive of tropical fruit filterable by color, size, and provenance, wherein a user may tell the page to display all small green tropical fruits hailing from South America, or perhaps all white-colored fruits, et cetera). How can I make this happen? I swear I tried Googling it, but all I got was a bunch of business-oriented, beginning-programmer stuff about search engines and stuff. Will I need to do SQLy stuff or something? Or, like... are there... simpler......... things? I DON'T KNOW.

3. Point me in a direction, I beg you.

3a. This is not really an intelligent conversation, I feel, but I take refuge behind the precedent of That Other Person Asking About Website-Makingish Stuff.

Depends if you want to do this server side or using just HTML and Javascript.

Serverside:

Just use a database or XML file with all the properties of the tropical fruits in them and then a simple script to retrieve only fruits with those properties.

HTML and Javascript:

Use some pre-made library such as: http://tablesorter.com, either use their demo and just build onto it or try to start new.

I think the table sorter library would be your best option

Depends if you want to do this server side or using just HTML and Javascript.

Serverside:

Just use a database or XML file with all the properties of the tropical fruits in them and then a simple script to retrieve only fruits with those properties.

HTML and Javascript:

Use some pre-made library such as: http://tablesorter.com, either use their demo and just build onto it or try to start new.

I think the table sorter library would be your best option

Hm, table sorter looks cool (and appeals to my moral sense of Let's Do As Little Work As Possible), but it doesn't seem as if it can handle more than one filter? Like, it can sort the table by color, but it can't sort/filter by color AND size simultaneously? Okay, really I'm less after sort than I am after match, if that makes sense -- so I guess that means I should go look up Javascript retrieving stuff from XML files and suchlike. That is a place to start, thank you! Now that I actually know what I need to go for -- I hope -- I can read, cannibalize, trial-and-error, and pester the correct substitute older-sibling figures in my life for help as necessary :'D

Hm, table sorter looks cool (and appeals to my moral sense of Let's Do As Little Work As Possible), but it doesn't seem as if it can handle more than one filter? Like, it can sort the table by color, but it can't sort/filter by color AND size simultaneously? Okay, really I'm less after sort than I am after match, if that makes sense -- so I guess that means I should go look up Javascript retrieving stuff from XML files and suchlike. That is a place to start, thank you! Now that I actually know what I need to go for -- I hope -- I can read, cannibalize, trial-and-error, and pester the correct substitute older-sibling figures in my life for help as necessary :'D

TIP! Sort multiple columns simultaneously by holding down the shift key and clicking a second, third or even fourth column header!

Yeah, I saw that. I tried that on their demo pages -- it didn't work Tried Ctrl, too, just to be sure -- no effect, just one column at a time.

Yeah, I saw that. I tried that on their demo pages -- it didn't work Tried Ctrl, too, just to be sure -- no effect, just one column at a time.

When you click on the first column, say first name, that column gets sort alphabetically. That order gets "locked", then you click on say "age" then only rows with the same first name will get sorted. In this example, "bruce" will be sorted by name and age.