Consider:
<form method="get" action="">
<select name="name">
<option value="a">a</option>
<option value="b">b</option>
</select>
<select name="location">
<option value="x">x</option>
<option value="y">y</option>
</select>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" class="submit" />
</form>
On submitting the form, how do I make sure that the selected values remain selected in the dropdowns? This form is inside WordPress (PHP).
To avoid many if-else structures, let JavaScript do the trick automatically:
<select name="name" id="name">
<option value="a">a</option>
<option value="b">b</option>
</select>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.getElementById('name').value = "<?php echo $_GET['name'];?>";
</script>
<select name="location" id="location">
<option value="x">x</option>
<option value="y">y</option>
</select>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.getElementById('location').value = "<?php echo $_GET['location'];?>";
</script>
<select name="name">
<option <?php if ($_GET['name'] == 'a') { ?>selected="true" <?php }; ?>value="a">a</option>
<option <?php if ($_GET['name'] == 'b') { ?>selected="true" <?php }; ?>value="b">b</option>
</select>
I don't work in WordPress much, but for forms outside of WordPress, this works well.
location = ""; // Declare variable
if($_POST) {
if(!$_POST["location"]) {
$error .= "Location is required.<br />"; // If not selected, add string to error message
}else{
$location = $_POST["location"]; // If selected, assign to variable
}
<select name="location">
<option value="0">Choose...</option>
<option value="1" <?php if (isset($location) && $location == "1") echo "selected" ?>>location 1</option>
<option value="2" <?php if (isset($location) && $location == "2") echo "selected" ?>>location 2</option>
</select>
Just change this line:
<input type="submit" value="Submit" class="submit" />
with this line:
<input type="submit" value="Submit/Reload" class="submit" onclick="history.go(-1);">
<select name="name">
<?php $options = ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e"];
foreach($options as $o){
if($o == $_GET['name']) $attr="selected='true'";
else $attr = "";
echo "<option value='{$o}' {$attr}>{$o}</option>";
}
?>
</select>
We can create an array of option before hand and only use simple if/else to check if selected or not. If you want different values for data and different value for displaying option you can use associative arrays too.
<select name="name">
<?php $options = ["a"=>"Option A", "b"=>"Option B", "c"=>"Option C", "d"=>"Option D", "e"=>"Option E"];
foreach($options as $index=>$o){
if($index == $_GET['name']) $attr="selected='true'";
else $attr = "";
echo "<option value='{$index}' {$attr}>{$o}</option>";
}
?>
</select>