[Glade-users] Building menu systems

[yan at seiner.com (Yan Seiner)]

This is not strictly a glade question, but I am using glade and I need
some ideas on how best to proceed.

I am dealing with a geographic data set that comes in chunks; users can
install it in pieces.  The dataset consists of 'features', single points
of interest.  I also have lookup tables for these features based on their
political locations.  I am trying to put all this into a menu system.

The goal is to have a menu system which starts out in by Country.  Under
Country, there are those features in that country, and also the States or
Cities which have features.

So for example (this reflects my current data organization):

Feature ABC -> USA|Arizona|Phoenix
Feature DEF -> USA|Arizona
Feature XYZ -> Germany
Feature KLM -> Czech Republic|Prague
Feature PQR -> Canada|Quebec

The menu system would be

USA             Arizona - DEF
                          Phoenix - ABC
Germany         XYZ
Czech Republic  Prague     KLM
Canada          Quebec     PQR

I am struggling with building these sorts of dynamic menus.  Some features
are keyed only to the Country, some to Country and State/Region, some to
Country, State/Region and City, and some to Country and City.

The whole menu system has to be generated on the fly as the user can add
or delete feature datasets.  The dataset can be huge; a full installation
has over 25,000 features, so some sort of nested system is necessary.

I can't help but think someone has done something like this and that I am
reinventing the wheel.

--Yan

-- 
Yan Seiner, PE