: The HTML Select element
The HTML element represents a control that provides a menu of options.
Try it
Each element should have a value attribute containing the data value to submit to the server when that option is selected. If no value attribute is included, the value defaults to the text contained inside the element. You can include a selected attribute on an element to make it selected by default when the page first loads.
The element has some unique attributes you can use to control it, such as multiple to specify whether multiple options can be selected, and size to specify how many options should be shown at once. It also accepts most of the general form input attributes such as required , disabled , autofocus , etc.
Attributes
This element includes the global attributes.
A string providing a hint for a user agent’s autocomplete feature. See The HTML autocomplete attribute for a complete list of values and details on how to use autocomplete.
This Boolean attribute lets you specify that a form control should have input focus when the page loads. Only one form element in a document can have the autofocus attribute.
This Boolean attribute indicates that the user cannot interact with the control. If this attribute is not specified, the control inherits its setting from the containing element, for example ; if there is no containing element with the disabled attribute set, then the control is enabled.
The element to associate the with (its form owner). The value of this attribute must be the id of a in the same document. (If this attribute is not set, the is associated with its ancestor element, if any.)
This attribute lets you associate elements to s anywhere in the document, not just inside a . It can also override an ancestor element.
This Boolean attribute indicates that multiple options can be selected in the list. If it is not specified, then only one option can be selected at a time. When multiple is specified, most browsers will show a scrolling list box instead of a single line dropdown.
This attribute is used to specify the name of the control.
A Boolean attribute indicating that an option with a non-empty string value must be selected.
If the control is presented as a scrolling list box (e.g. when multiple is specified), this attribute represents the number of rows in the list that should be visible at one time. Browsers are not required to present a select element as a scrolled list box. The default value is 0 .
Note: According to the HTML specification, the default value for size should be 1 ; however, in practice, this has been found to break some websites, and no other browser currently does that, so Mozilla has opted to continue to return 0 for the time being with Firefox.
Usage notes
Selecting multiple options
On a desktop computer, there are a number of ways to select multiple options in a element with a multiple attribute:
Mouse users can hold the Ctrl , Command , or Shift keys (depending on what makes sense for your operating system) and then click multiple options to select/deselect them.
Warning: The mechanism for selecting multiple non-contiguous items via the keyboard described below currently only seems to work in Firefox.
On macOS, the Ctrl + Up and Ctrl + Down shortcuts conflict with the OS default shortcuts for Mission Control and Application windows, so you’ll have to turn these off before it will work.
Keyboard users can select multiple contiguous items by:
- Focusing on the element (e.g. using Tab ).
- Selecting an item at the top or bottom of the range they want to select using the Up and Down cursor keys to go up and down the options.
- Holding down the Shift key and then using the Up and Down cursor keys to increase or decrease the range of items selected.
Keyboard users can select multiple non-contiguous items by:
- Focusing on the element (e.g. using Tab ).
- Holding down the Ctrl key then using the Up and Down cursor keys to change the «focused» select option, i.e. the one that will be selected if you choose to do so. The «focused» select option is highlighted with a dotted outline, in the same way as a keyboard-focused link.
- Pressing Space to select/deselect «focused» select options.
Styling with CSS
The element is notoriously difficult to style productively with CSS. You can affect certain aspects like any element — for example, manipulating the box model, the displayed font, etc., and you can use the appearance property to remove the default system appearance .
However, these properties don’t produce a consistent result across browsers, and it is hard to do things like line different types of form element up with one another in a column. The element’s internal structure is complex, and hard to control. If you want to get full control, you should consider using a library with good facilities for styling form widgets, or try rolling your own dropdown menu using non-semantic elements, JavaScript, and WAI-ARIA to provide semantics.
For more useful information on styling , see:
Also see the «Customizing select styles» example below for an example of you could attempt a simple styling.
Examples
Basic select
The following example creates a very simple dropdown menu, the second option of which is selected by default.
select name="choice"> option value="first">First Valueoption> option value="second" selected>Second Valueoption> option value="third">Third Valueoption> select>
Result
Advanced select with multiple features
The follow example is more complex, showing off more features you can use on a element:
label> Please choose one or more pets: select name="pets" multiple size="4"> optgroup label="4-legged pets"> option value="dog">Dogoption> option value="cat">Catoption> option value="hamster" disabled>Hamsteroption> optgroup> optgroup label="Flying pets"> option value="parrot">Parrotoption> option value="macaw">Macawoption> option value="albatross">Albatrossoption> optgroup> select> label>
Result
- Multiple options are selectable because we’ve included the multiple attribute.
- The size attribute causes only 4 lines to display at a time; you can scroll to view all the options.
- We’ve included elements to divide the options up into different groups. This is a purely visual grouping, its visualization generally consists of the group name being bolded, and the options being indented.
- The «Hamster» option includes a disabled attribute and therefore can’t be selected at all.
Customizing select styles
This example shows how you could use some CSS and JavaScript to provide extensive custom styling for a box.
Note: Not all native features are supported, it’s a Proof of Concept. IT starts from standard HTML but the same results can be achieved starting from JSON data, custom HTML, or other solutions.
HTML
form> fieldset> legend>Standard controlslegend> select name="1A" id="select" autocomplete="off" required> option>Carrotsoption> option>Peasoption> option>Beansoption> option>Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosisoption> select> fieldset> fieldset id="custom"> legend>Custom controlslegend> select name="2A" id="select" autocomplete="off" required> option>Carrotsoption> option>Peasoption> option>Beansoption> option>Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosisoption> select> fieldset> form>
CSS
body font-family: Cambria, Cochin, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; > .select:focus border-color: blue; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select[data-multiple] div.header display: none; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.header content: "↓"; display: flex; flex: 1; align-items: center; padding: 0; position: relative; width: auto; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 1px; border-style: inherit; border-color: inherit; border-radius: inherit; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.header::after content: "↓"; align-self: stretch; display: flex; align-content: center; justify-content: center; justify-items: center; align-items: center; padding: 0.5em; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.header:hover::after background-color: blue; > .select .header select appearance: none; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; padding: 0; border-width: 0; width: 100%; flex: 1; display: none; > .select .header select optgroup display: none; > .select select div.option display: none; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select user-select: none; box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; border-radius: 4px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; border-color: gray; width: auto; display: inline-block; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select:focus, html body form fieldset#custom div.select:hover border-color: blue; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select[data-open] border-bottom-left-radius: 0; border-bottom-right-radius: 0; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select[data-open] datalist display: initial; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select datalist appearance: none; position: absolute; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; border-color: gray; left: 0; display: none; width: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; z-index: 2; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select datalist div.option background-color: white; margin-bottom: 1px; cursor: pointer; padding: 0.5em; border-width: 0; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select datalist div.option:hover, html body form fieldset#custom div.select datalist div.option:focus, html body form fieldset#custom div.select datalist div.option:checked background-color: blue; color: white; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.optgroup div.option[data-disabled] color: gray; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.optgroup div.option[data-checked] background-color: blue; color: white; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.optgroup div.label font-weight: bold; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.optgroup div.option div.label font-weight: normal; padding: 0.25em; > html body form fieldset#custom div.select div.header span flex: 1; padding: 0.5em; >
JavaScript
const selects = custom.querySelectorAll("select"); for (const select of selects) const div = document.createElement("div"); const header = document.createElement("div"); const datalist = document.createElement("datalist"); const optgroups = select.querySelectorAll("optgroup"); const span = document.createElement("span"); const options = select.options; const parent = select.parentElement; const multiple = select.hasAttribute("multiple"); function onclick(e) const disabled = this.hasAttribute("data-disabled"); select.value = this.dataset.value; span.innerText = this.dataset.label; if (disabled) return; if (multiple) if (e.shiftKey) const checked = this.hasAttribute("data-checked"); if (checked) this.removeAttribute("data-checked"); > else this.setAttribute("data-checked", ""); > > else const options = div.querySelectorAll(".option"); for (let i = 0; i options.length; i++) const option = options[i]; option.removeAttribute("data-checked"); > this.setAttribute("data-checked", ""); > > > function onkeyup(e) e.preventDefault(); e.stopPropagation(); if (e.keyCode === 13) this.click(); > > div.classList.add("select"); header.classList.add("header"); div.tabIndex = 1; select.tabIndex = -1; span.innerText = select.label; header.appendChild(span); for (const attribute of select.attributes) div.dataset[attribute.name] = attribute.value; > for (let i = 0; i options.length; i++) const option = document.createElement("div"); const label = document.createElement("div"); const o = options[i]; for (const attribute of o.attributes) option.dataset[attribute.name] = attribute.value; > option.classList.add("option"); label.classList.add("label"); label.innerText = o.label; option.dataset.value = o.value; option.dataset.label = o.label; option.onclick = onclick; option.onkeyup = onkeyup; option.tabIndex = i + 1; option.appendChild(label); datalist.appendChild(option); > div.appendChild(header); for (const o of optgroups) const optgroup = document.createElement("div"); const label = document.createElement("div"); const options = o.querySelectorAll("option"); Object.assign(optgroup, o); optgroup.classList.add("optgroup"); label.classList.add("label"); label.innerText = o.label; optgroup.appendChild(label); div.appendChild(optgroup); for (const o of options) const option = document.createElement("div"); const label = document.createElement("div"); for (const attribute of o.attributes) option.dataset[attribute.name] = attribute.value; > option.classList.add("option"); label.classList.add("label"); label.innerText = o.label; option.tabIndex = i + 1; option.dataset.value = o.value; option.dataset.label = o.label; option.onclick = onclick; option.onkeyup = onkeyup; option.tabIndex = i + 1; option.appendChild(label); optgroup.appendChild(option); > > div.onclick = (e) => e.preventDefault(); >; parent.insertBefore(div, select); header.appendChild(select); div.appendChild(datalist); datalist.style.top = `$header.offsetTop + header.offsetHeight>px`; div.onclick = (e) => if (!multiple) const open = div.hasAttribute("data-open"); e.stopPropagation(); if (open) div.removeAttribute("data-open"); > else div.setAttribute("data-open", ""); > > >; div.onkeyup = (event) => event.preventDefault(); if (event.keyCode === 13) div.click(); > >; document.addEventListener("click", (e) => if (div.hasAttribute("data-open")) div.removeAttribute("data-open"); > >); const width = Math.max( . Array.from(options).map((e) => span.innerText = e.label; return div.offsetWidth; >), ); console.log(width); div.style.width = `$width>px`; > document.forms[0].onsubmit = (e) => const data = new FormData(this); e.preventDefault(); submit.innerText = JSON.stringify([. data.entries()]); >;
Result
Technical summary
Content categories | Flow content, phrasing content, interactive content, listed, labelable, resettable, and submittable form-associated element |
---|---|
Permitted content | Zero or more or elements. |
Tag omission | None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory. |
Permitted parents | Any element that accepts phrasing content. |
Implicit ARIA role | combobox with no multiple attribute and no size attribute greater than 1, otherwise listbox |
Permitted ARIA roles | menu with no multiple attribute and no size attribute greater than 1, otherwise no role permitted |
DOM interface | HTMLSelectElement |
Specifications
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser