Making a dropdown box stay over last selected

Mythic_Fr0st

I want it so when you scroll down my dropdown box and select number 4...

it stays at 4, and doesnt go back to number 1, any possible way of this?

void_function

Do you mean that it stays at 4 on subsequent page loads?

Mythic_Fr0st

well dont know what you mean by that

but I mean

say your playing a text based game
its monster list has like 20 monsters...
Say you pick the 20th...

Now when you click attack, it links to that page, and does whatever...

BUT it will drop back to the 1st option in the dropdown box, and you'll have to repeatedly click it and go to the 20th...

how do you make it return to the last posted option when you click, "attack"

does that make sense

void_function

Yeah, it means that the drop down must stay at same selection through subsequent page loads.

All you need to do is to check the value in your <select> field while you loop through options. For example, let's say that $selectoption is an array that contains options for the select, as another array where [0] is option value, and [1] is option text, and $_POST['selected'] contains selected value from previous page load:

foreach ($selectoption as $something) {
  if ($_POST['selected']==$something[0]) $sel= 'selected ';
  else $sel='';

  echo "<option {$sel}value=\"{$something[0]}\">{$something[1]}</option>";

}

Mythic_Fr0st

that $selectoption is an array that contains options for the select

You mean like

$oa = array('Baby Elf', 'Wood Elf', 'Dark Elf', 'Blood Elf');

$oa = array('<option value=0> Baby Elf');

etc..?

this is my code for the actual thing

<form method="post" action="HomePIG.php">
<select name="monsters">
<option value=0>Baby Elf</option>
<option value=1>Wood Elf</option>
<option value=2>Dark Elf</option>
<option value=3>Blood Elf</option>
</select>
<input type='hidden' name='nf' value='nf2'>
<input type="submit" value="New Fight">
</form>

hmm

void_function

Ah, if you hardcoded options in HTML, it will be very difficult to implement this. Instead, put all the monsters into array, and then present the <select> with a foreach loop:

$monsters= array ('Baby Elf', 'Wood Elf', 'Dark Elf', ...);

And then:


...

$monster_selected= (isset($_POST['monster_selected'])) ? ((int) $_POST['monster_selected']) : 0;

...

echo '<select name="monster_selected">';
foreach ($monsters as $key => $val) {
  if ($monster_selected==$key) $sel='selected ';
  else $sel= '';
  echo "<option {$sel}value=\"{$key}\">{$val}</option>";
}
echo '</select>';

It would be wise to keep key=0 empty (for instance "-- Select Monster --") to check if user actually selcted any monster, or did not touch the drop down at all.

Mythic_Fr0st

Thanks for your help, but I could not get it working:/

I was experimenting with a 'last fight' button I was working on before you posted, and i've got it working 🙂

(after 7 hours, LOL somethings are to be wondered if they are worth it)

Anyway thanks