Baseline Widely available *
The <select>
HTML element represents a control that provides a menu of options.
<label for="pet-select">Choose a pet:</label>
<select name="pets" id="pet-select">
<option value="">--Please choose an option--</option>
<option value="dog">Dog</option>
<option value="cat">Cat</option>
<option value="hamster">Hamster</option>
<option value="parrot">Parrot</option>
<option value="spider">Spider</option>
<option value="goldfish">Goldfish</option>
</select>
label {
font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 1rem;
padding-right: 10px;
}
select {
font-size: 0.9rem;
padding: 2px 5px;
}
The above example shows typical <select>
usage. It is given an id
attribute to enable it to be associated with a <label>
for accessibility purposes, as well as a name
attribute to represent the name of the associated data point submitted to the server. Each menu option is defined by an <option>
element nested inside the <select>
.
Each <option>
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 <option>
element to make it selected by default when the page first loads. If no selected
attribute is specified, the first <option>
element will be selected by default.
A <select>
element is represented in JavaScript by an HTMLSelectElement
object, and this object has a value
property which contains the value of the selected <option>
.
The <select>
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.
You can further nest <option>
elements inside <optgroup>
elements to create separate groups of options inside the dropdown. You can also include <hr>
elements to create separators that add visual breaks between options.
For further examples, see The native form widgets: Drop-down content.
AttributesThis element includes the global attributes.
autocomplete
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.
autofocus
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.
disabled
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 <fieldset>
; if there is no containing element with the disabled
attribute set, then the control is enabled.
form
The <form>
element to associate the <select>
with (its form owner). The value of this attribute must be the id
of a <form>
in the same document. (If this attribute is not set, the <select>
is associated with its ancestor <form>
element, if any.)
This attribute lets you associate <select>
elements to <form>
s anywhere in the document, not just inside a <form>
. It can also override an ancestor <form>
element.
multiple
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.
name
This attribute is used to specify the name of the control.
required
A Boolean attribute indicating that an option with a non-empty string value must be selected.
size
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.
On a desktop computer, there are a number of ways to select multiple options in a <select>
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:
<select>
element (e.g., using Tab).Keyboard users can select multiple non-contiguous items by:
<select>
element (e.g., using Tab).The <select>
element has historically been notoriously difficult to style productively with CSS, hence features being introduced to enable creating fully customizable select elements.
In browsers that don't support the modern customization features (or legacy codebases where they can't be used), you are limited to manipulating the box model, the displayed font, etc. You can also use the appearance
property to remove the default system appearance
.
It is however, hard to get a consistent result across browsers with traditional <select>
elements. 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.
You can use the :open
pseudo-class to style <select>
elements in the open state, that is, when the drop-down options list is displayed. This doesn't apply to multi-line <select>
elements (those with the multiple
attribute set) â they tend to render as a scrolling list box rather than a drop-down, so don't have an open state.
For more information on legacy <select>
styling, see:
field-sizing
property, which controls how <select>
elements are sized in relation to their contained options.The <hr>
within a <select>
should be considered purely decorative, as they are currently not exposed within the accessibility tree and therefore not exposed to assistive technologies.
The following example creates a three-value dropdown menu, the second option of which is selected by default.
<!-- The second value will be selected initially -->
<select name="choice">
<option value="first">First Value</option>
<option value="second" selected>Second Value</option>
<option value="third">Third Value</option>
</select>
Result Select with grouping options
The following example creates a dropdown menu with grouping using <optgroup>
and <hr>
to make it easier for the user to understand the content in the dropdown.
<label for="hr-select">Your favorite food</label> <br />
<select name="foods" id="hr-select">
<option value="">Choose a food</option>
<hr />
<optgroup label="Fruit">
<option value="apple">Apples</option>
<option value="banana">Bananas</option>
<option value="cherry">Cherries</option>
<option value="damson">Damsons</option>
</optgroup>
<hr />
<optgroup label="Vegetables">
<option value="artichoke">Artichokes</option>
<option value="broccoli">Broccoli</option>
<option value="cabbage">Cabbages</option>
</optgroup>
<hr />
<optgroup label="Meat">
<option value="beef">Beef</option>
<option value="chicken">Chicken</option>
<option value="pork">Pork</option>
</optgroup>
<hr />
<optgroup label="Fish">
<option value="cod">Cod</option>
<option value="haddock">Haddock</option>
<option value="salmon">Salmon</option>
<option value="turbot">Turbot</option>
</optgroup>
</select>
Result Advanced select with multiple features
The follow example is more complex, showing off more features you can use on a <select>
element:
<label>
Please choose one or more pets:
<select name="pets" multiple size="4">
<optgroup label="4-legged pets">
<option value="dog">Dog</option>
<option value="cat">Cat</option>
<option value="hamster" disabled>Hamster</option>
</optgroup>
<optgroup label="Flying pets">
<option value="parrot">Parrot</option>
<option value="macaw">Macaw</option>
<option value="albatross">Albatross</option>
</optgroup>
</select>
</label>
Result
You'll see that:
multiple
attribute.size
attribute causes only 4 lines to display at a time; you can scroll to view all the options.<optgroup>
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.disabled
attribute and therefore can't be selected at all.<option>
, <optgroup>
, or <hr>
elements in traditional <select>
elements. In customizable select elements:
<button>
is optionally included as a child <button>
element with a nested <selectedcontent>
element.<option>
, <optgroup>
, <hr>
, <div>
, <script>
, <template>
, and <noscript>
elements.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 See also
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