Is it possible to populate a select drop-down menu from an external api?

@skiab0x

https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/dependent-dropdown-with-api

sure. I would create a class that does the API calling and then use it in the controller and send its output to the view.

If the API takes some time then you might want to consider caching the results.

Do you believe that I should go like this, I mean with Laravel custom helper classes or should I use jquery directly on the page?

If you are using jquery and the data is the correct format, and just requires a simple get request, you can use select2

https://select2.org/data-sources/ajax

@sinnbeck Is is easy for select2 library to communicate with a blade template select at the same page?

The markdown is just simple html which works great in laravel/blade

<select class="js-data-example-ajax"></select>

@sinnbeck So you use this class directly to your blade html code?

Or any other classname. Or an ID. Check the link I posted. You are just using the class/id to tell jquery which element to activate select2 on. Have you used jquery before?

@sinnbeck I tried to use this example code in your link but it doesn't seem to work. Here is the code

<div class="form-row">
                                <div class="form-group col-md-6 col-lg-3">
                                    <label>ShortCode</label>
                                    <select class="form-control" name="shortcode" id="formControlSelectShortCode" required>

                                    </select>
                                </div>
                            </div>

<script>

        // Put your script here (that is only necessary for this page)!
        $('formControlSelectShortCode').select2({
            ajax: {
                url: 'https://api.github.com/search/repositories',
                dataType: 'json'
                // Additional AJAX parameters go here; see the end of this chapter for the full code of this example
            }
        });

    </script>

@skiab0x You miss there id selector #

 $('#formControlSelectShortCode').select2({
    ajax: {
        url: 'https://api.github.com/search/repositories',
        dataType: 'json'
    }
});

You are missing a #. It tells jquery to use the id. A dot (.) means class

$('#formControlSelectShortCode').select2

Thank you!