Brain teaser

[mscertified]

Anyone got any ideas about the following.

I have a table of keywords. The keywords can be 3 levels deep so the table
has 3 columns Tier1, Tier2, Tier3. Tier1 is always present but Tier2 and/or
Tier3 may not be. If Tier2 is blank, Tier3 must be blank. I know this is not
normalized.

The user will be able to drill down to the lowest level. ie. I present all
unique Tier1 keywords and a "+" if there are multiple Tier2 for that Tier1.
Then on Tier2 I do the same.

Now the tricky part. I'd like to give the user the option of selecting at
the lowest Tier level directly e.g.
Software-MSOffice--Powerpoint
The user can select 'Powerpoint' directly without having to drill thru
Software and MSOffice. The problem is the lowest Tier can have duplicates e.g.
Hardware-Laptop-Display
Hardware-Computer-Display

I have 95% of this coded and working, the above is the only part I'm unsure
about. I'm thinking I'd show all unique lowest level keywords, then a "+" if
there were duplicates.
The most important requirement of this facility is that it must take the
minimum number of keystrokes to select the keyword.

 

[Mr B]

My first thought is that if the user decides that they to select from Tier 3
first, then you would show them a list of unique values from the Tier 3
field. Then, when the user makes a selection from the Tier 3 list,
immediately populate another list or combo box with a list of unique values
from the Tier 2 field. If the user selects a value from the Tier 2 list then
populate still another list or combo box with the unique list of values from
the Tier 1 field.

Just thinking off the top of my head. Most of the time this is not worth
much LOL.