[jQuery] Cascade plugin - feature/improvement request (data optimization)

[James]

Mike et all:

Now that I've worked through some of the basics, I would like to know
how easy it would be to accommodate a JSON file in a bit of a more
efficient structure using arrays rather than simple value pairs.

IE.: You have designed around this structure:
{'when':'selectedValue','value':'itemValue','text':'itemText'}

Whereas after some testing, I've realized the data sizes would become
rather huge rather quickly.

I'm proposing a JSON structure such as:

{
    "Country1": [
        {
            "Region1": [
                "City1",
                "City2",
                "City3"
            ],
            "Region2": [
                "City1",
                "City2",
                "City3"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

The idea would be for a separate JSON file for each country (now that
we've got dynamic URLs working).  (see related discussion: [url]http://
groups.google.com/group/jquery-en/browse_thread/thread/
142c1e9e9119b198#[/url]

Of course this simplified structure would require some parsing and
reformatting AFTER loading the JSON file to fit the structure used for
the .CASCADE plugin.

My problem is, since I'm so new to all this, I have no idea where in
the code to begin looking at how to take my imported JSON file, and
then do the work on it to change it into your format.

Could you offer some insight on this?

Thanks,
James