Dropdown/multiselect input: maximum number of choice items (performance)

[helge]

We are populating Simple XML input elements of types dropdown and multiselect from searches. In some cases the number of elements can be very high, so I would like to limit the number added as choices to the UI.

My question is: what is a reasonable upper limit for the number of choice items per input element?

In our experiments 1,000 choice items did not pose any obvious problem. Would 10,000 or 100,000 be OK on modern browsers, too?

[rjthibod]

I thought there was a limit of 10,000 but that does not appear to be the case in 6.4.

In general, I limit mine to 2500. I am usually chaining multiple input elements from a larger data set defined in a lookup, so the early selected values help filter the subsequent values.

I just did a simple test that included 23,000+ units on a dashboard with nothing else than that single input, and I would say that it had a noticeable impact on my system (primary standalone server with plenty of resources). That input set (the SID) ate up a few megabytes and made my input element nearly unresponsive.