Remembering Drop Down Menu

[timstring]

What is the simplest method to get a drop-down menu to automatically go to the last option selected?

[bradgrafelman]

Output selected="selected" inside the <option> tag that corresponds with the value that was submitted (i.e. the "last option selected").

[timstring]

Yes, but my drop-down menu has 3 choices. How do I remember the first choice when the page is viewed for the 2nd time and the 3rd . . ., so the client doesn't have to select from the drop-down menu over and over again.

"If builders built buildings the way that programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would wreck civilization."

[Derokorian]

$ddl = array('--Select--','Option 1','Option 2','Another Option');
echo '<select name="someddl">';
foreach( $ddl as $k => $v ) {
   echo '<option value="'. $k .'"';
   if( isset($_POST['someddl']) && $_POST['someddl'] == $k ) {
      echo ' selected="selected"';
   }
   echo '>'. $v .'</option>';
}
echo '</select>';

HTH

[bradgrafelman]

timstring;11014327 wrote:

How do I remember the first choice when the page is viewed for the 2nd time and the 3rd . . .

Store the initial selection in a cookie (or a session). Then, every time you output the HTML for that drop-down, check to see if that cookie/session value exists and, if so, do what I said above.

[timstring]

This did the trick. Now I need a variant that eludes me.

I am passing a variable from one page to the next via $_SESSION['System']

$TechSystem = $_SESSION['System'];

then this:

$ddl = array('--Select System--','Bryan, TX','Enid, OK','Tyler, TX');
	echo '<select name="System">';
	foreach( $ddl as $k => $v ) {
	   echo '<option value="'. $k .'"';
	   if( isset($TechSystem) && $TechSystem == $k ) {
		echo ' selected="selected"';
  		 }
   echo '>'. $v .'</option>';

What I am trying to accomplish is to have the drop-down menu set to $TechSystem, but I'm not doing something right

[Weedpacket]

timstring wrote:

What I am trying to accomplish is to have the drop-down menu set to $TechSystem, but I'm not doing something right

At what point do you set [font=monospace]$_SESSION['System'][/font] and what are you setting it to?

[timstring]

$SESSION('System') is set at the beginning of the script and is set $TechSystem=$SESSION('System'). Should 'System' be a number?

[bradgrafelman]

timstring;11014629 wrote:

$SESSION('System') is set at the beginning of the script and is set $TechSystem=$SESSION('System').

For one, I think you meant to use square brackets there rather than parentheses.

A bigger issue is that you aren't setting $_SESSION['System'] there, you're setting $TechSystem.

[timstring]

$_SESSION['System'] is passed from the previous page via the session() etc at the very beginning of the page. And yes, I meant '[]'.

[bradgrafelman]

Okay, so now you've mostly answered one out of the two questions Weedpacket asked:

Weedpacket;11014621 wrote:

At what point do you set [font=monospace]$_SESSION['System'][/font] and what are you setting it to?

[timstring]

$_SESSION['System'] is set from a MySQL database, and it is set to one of the three menu choices.

[bradgrafelman]

What do you mean by "menu choices" ? If you mean the actual string that you're displaying in the drop-down box, then that's your problem; you aren't comparing $TechSystem with those strings, you're comparing it to the integer array keys 1, 2, and 3.

[timstring]

So, Brad, based on your logic, I put the following code in:

if($_SESSION['System'] == "Bryan, TX") $TechSystem = 1;
if($_SESSION['System'] == "Enid, OK") $TechSystem = 2;
if($_SESSION['System'] == "Tyler, TX") $TechSystem= 3;

if($_SESSION['ticktock']!=2)
	{
echo $TechSystem . "<br /><br />";

echo '<div class="center"; align="center"; style="font-size:.75em; width:400px; text-align:center;">';


$ddl = array('--Select System--','Bryan, TX','Enid, OK','Tyler, TX');
echo '<select name="System">';
foreach( $ddl as $k => $v ) {
   echo '<option value="'. $k .'"';
   if( isset($TechSystem) && $TechSystem == $k ) {
      echo ' selected="selected"';
   }
   echo '>'. $v .'</option>';
}
$_SESSION['System'] = $ddl;
echo '</select>';  

echo '</div>';
}

It actually worked. Just goes to prove that even a blind hog will find an acorn every now and then

[bradgrafelman]

Probably would have been a lot simpler to just change a single character in your previous code (to use $v rather than $k in your if() statement).