CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi,

Can someone please explain how to create drop-down lists/menus using CiviCRM profiles to be displayed in the front-end? I want my users/website visitors to be able to conduct a search of the database by selecting from a list in the front-end. 

> What's in the drop-down menu?

I intend to have several drop-down menus.  One would be 'Organisation Type' where I would have: Community Group, Community Centre, Faith, Forum etc.  By selecting, say, Community Group from the dorp-down, the user should be presented with a list of all community groups i.e. the groups contained in that smart group. 

I've found a way to display a selection of checkboxes in the front-end which does the same thing, but would ideally like to present users with a series of drop-down menus.

Is this feasibly or am I being too idealistic?

You can do something like this with these steps (using your Org Type example):
* Create a custom field called Organization Type, data type = Alphanumeric, html type = Select. Enter your org type choices as multiple choice options for the field, make it searchable.
* Update your organization contact records and assign the appropriate org type to them.
* Add this field to your "front-end" Profile - and make it Searchable and In Selector.
* Now when users to to the front-end profile - they will see the drop-down and can select the org type and hit search...

You can repeat above for any other contact characteristics you want folks to search on - and if you put these fields in a single profile - they can search on combinations of characteristics (example: org type = Forum, city = Phoenix).

However, you can not use the "Limit Listings to Group" feature of a Profile for multiple groups (and if above works for you, you might not need that - or you may want to create a group consisting of ALL organizations that you want available in this profile search / listings and limit results to that group).