How to refresh a page and retain the same selection

[myuser]

Hi ,

I am developing a webpage using LAMP where the programming language is PERL.

My page has a table in it and above the table columns there is drop-down which filters the table data. This filter is implemented by Javascript. If I choose 'all' from the drop-down it shows the entire table data and if other
values are selected then only those relevant data it shows. By default if not
selected anything from drop-down, it shows all the data of the table.

The problem is , if I refresh the page then irrespective of what value was selected from drop-down, it shows the default data only. How can I implement the feature so that even if I refresh it will bring the table-data depending on the last selected value from the drop-down.

Please help.

Thanks.

[Sixtease]

This is for the JavaScript forum.

You do it this way: Create a string representation for the current filter (like the value of the option from the select tag), then store that to the fragment part of the URL. Then add a JavaScript to the end of the body that will check if a URL fragment is present and apply the appropriate filter.

It could look something like this, if you use jQuery:

// after a dropdown has been selected:
location.hash = $(selected_option).val();

$(document).ready(function() {
    var fragment = location.hash.replace(/^#/, '');
    if (fragment) {
        apply_filter(fragment);
    }
})

N.B. Another possible place of storing the selection would be a cookie if you don't like to alter the URL fragment.