//this is the ajax handler..
//I'd like to pass the form's POST variables, through - 
//only explicit GET is working..any clues?


  function makerequest(serverPage, objID) {

    var obj = document.getElementById(objID);
    //xmlhttp.open("GET", serverPage);
    xmlhttp.open("POST", serverPage);
    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
      if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200) {
        obj.innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
      }
    }
    xmlhttp.send(null);
  }

  function makerequest2(serverPage, objID) {

    var obj = document.getElementById(objID);
    //xmlhttp.open("GET", serverPage);
    xmlhttp.open("POST", serverPage);
    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
      if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200) {
        obj.innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
      }
    }
    //xmlhttp.send(null);
    xmlhttp.send("?list_departments="+document.getElementsByName("list_departments")[].value);
  }



//this is the request in the main page..

  <td>
        <form method="post" name="form1" action="<? echo $path ?>" style="margin-bottom:0;">
          <input type="hidden" name="list_departments" value="1">
          <input type="image" src="/feathersoft/images/list.png" alt="List" border="0"' ;?> onclick="makerequest('departments.php', 'hw');  return false;" <?echo '/>
        </form>
      </td>