Height of an HTML select box (dropdown)

Viewed 147620

Can someone confirm that its not possible to change the height of a dropdown that is shown when you click on a select box.

The size attribute of the select makes it look like a list, the height attribute in the CSS doesnt do much good either.

8 Answers

Confirmed.

The part that drops down is set to either:

  1. The height needed to show all entries, or
  2. The height needed to show x entries (with scrollbars to see remaining), where x is
    • 20 in Firefox & Chrome
    • 30 in IE 6, 7, 8
    • 16 for Opera 10
    • 14 for Opera 11
    • 22 for Safari 4
    • 18 for Safari 5
    • 11 in IE 5.0, 5.5
  3. In IE/Edge, if there are no options, a stupidly high list of 11 blanks entries.

For (3) above you can see the results in this JSFiddle

I know that it's not the best practice for changing the height of the select, but there is a code that maybe helps you to change the height.

Using the size attribute of the select tag:

<select onfocus='this.size=6;' onblur='this.size=6;' onfocusout='this.size=null;' onchange='this.size=6; this.blur();'>
    <option>Option 1</option>
    <option>Option 2</option>
    <option>Option 3</option>
    <option>Option 4</option>
    <option>Option 5</option>
    <option>Option 6</option>
    <option>Option 7</option>
    <option>Option 8</option>
    <option>Option 9</option>
    <option>Option 10</option>
    <option>Option 11</option>
    <option>Option 12</option>
    <option>Option 13</option>
    <option>Option 14</option>
    <option>Option 15</option>
</select>

You can change the height of one. Don't use height="500"(Just an example number). Use the style. You can use <style>tag or just use this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
  <select id="option" style="height: 100px;">
    <option value="1">Option 1
    <option value="2">Option 2
  </select>
</body>
</html>

I spotlight the change:

  <select id="option" style="height: 100px;">

And even better...

style="height: 100px;">

You see that?

Please up vote if it's helpful!

Related