Make dropdown menu with searchable country names

[JoryGriffith]

It would be great to have a drop down menu with searchable country names because it is too easy to miswrite.

[jmlord]

This is absolutely necessary! Current workaround is to use the markdown feature in the input description to link to the list of acceptable values.

Proposed solution 1:

• Add and document two new custom types: "country" and "region" <-- is region the good snigle-word alternative to "state or province"?
• Support those in the UI (this is very narrow, works for this case only)

Proposed solution 2:

• Support a link attribute in the options attribute, as such:

  options_example:
  label: Options example
  description: The user has to select between a fixed number of text options. Also called select or enum. The script receives the selected option as text.
  type: options
  options: http://site.com/api/optionList
  example: third option

  More expandable, but then we'd need to set expectations on the option formats we can read.

@glaroc, thoughts?

[tpoisot]

What about using GADM? They have a curated collection of territories and their subdivisions.

(and using the word "Country" may be debatable as well, not everyone agrees on what a country is...)

[glaroc]

The complicated part is the dependent dropdowns. For example, the choice of states/provinces has to depend on the choice of country. For the dependent dropdown, we could have something like

options_country:
  label: Country selector
  description: Choice of countries
  type: options
  options: http://site.com/api/countryList
  example: Colombia
options_province:
  label: State/province selectore
  description: Choice of state/province
  type: options_dependence 
  options: http://site.com/api/provinceList/{options_country}
  example: Putomayo

[gottacatchenall]

Quickest fix here is probably to query everything in GADM once and make a static JSON of the regions/subregions/subsubregions hierarchy

[glaroc]

We have these endpoints already here: https://geoio.biodiversite-quebec.ca/country_list and https://geoio.biodiversite-quebec.ca/state_list?country_name=Colombia

[gottacatchenall]

(and using the word "Country" may be debatable as well, not everyone agrees on what a country is...)

Huge agree here. These are things that should be addressed at a higher level of governance within GEO-BON, but the choices we make here could absolutely impact the reception of this platform by national policy makers, e.g. the decision to include Taiwan in the country list above.

[glaroc]

We obviously won't be the ones making those decisions. We could use the same country list the CBD/UN uses. Or change the title to Country/Territory

[tpoisot]

We could use the same country list the CBD/UN uses. Or change the title to Country/Territory

Agreed, and I think that's a decision for which we can ask advice from GEOBON leadership. Happy to bring it up on discourse for the IC.

[jmlord]

We have these endpoints already here: https://geoio.biodiversite-quebec.ca/country_list and https://geoio.biodiversite-quebec.ca/state_list?country_name=Colombia

Bare minimum, these should be linked in the description of the scripts referring to this country list while we find a more permanent solution.

As for the debate on what a country is, I'd gladly wash my hands of it and refer to some international authority... as long as they provide the polygons along with the region names!