Question

Disabling an option value in a select box in IE7

Asked by: Leprechaun

I have a form with various interrelated lists and options. Depending on the year selected by the user, particular options are made available in a SELECT list. Currently, I remove the inappropriate options using JavasScript.

Now I've been told that the inappropriate options need to stay but be DISABLED.

We use IE exclusively where I work--much to my frustration--and the problem is that IE does not support the "disabled" property for SELECT lists due to a long-standing bug. (I've read that IE8 no longer has this bug, but I don't have access to IE 8 to verify.)

What's the best workaround? (If possible, please supply a link to a site that employs the technique so I can verify that it'll work before I try to set it up.)

Thanks.

<SELECT SIZE=5 NAME="first"    selectedIndex=-1 multiple>
<OPTION VALUE="1" >A</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE="2">B</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE="3">C</OPTION>
</SELECT>

                                  
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Asked On
2009-08-04 at 09:22:33ID24625283
Tags

Internet Explorer

Topics

Miscellaneous Web Development

,

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

,

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Participating Experts
1
Points
50
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: ReapzPosted on 2009-08-04 at 11:36:53ID: 25016729

Came across this a while back. Just add these functions to your page and then set the disbabled tag as usual. Wish I could remember where I found it so I could give proper credit.

<!--[if lt IE 7]> 
<script type="text/javascript"> 
 
window.onload = function() { 
if (document.getElementsByTagName) { 
var s = document.getElementsByTagName("select"); 
if (s.length > 0) { 
window.select_current = new Array(); 
for (var i=0, select; select = s[i]; i++) { 
select.onfocus = function(){ window.select_current[this.id] = this.selectedIndex; } 
select.onchange = function(){ restore(this); } 
emulate(select); 
} 
} 
} 
}
 
function restore(e) { 
if (e.options[e.selectedIndex].disabled) { 
e.selectedIndex = window.select_current[e.id]; 
} 
} 
 
function emulate(e) { 
for (var i=0, option; option = e.options[i]; i++) { 
if (option.disabled) { 
option.style.color = "graytext"; 
} 
else { 
option.style.color = "menutext"; 
} 
} 
}
 
</script> 
<![endif]-->

                                              
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by: LeprechaunPosted on 2009-08-04 at 11:41:53ID: 25016785

Thanks very much Reapz.

At this risk of a dumb question, will this work when I'm setting the DISABLED property using JavaScript?

 

by: LeprechaunPosted on 2009-08-04 at 11:51:54ID: 25016889

Does this need to be wired up to the Body tag onload handler or something? It isn't working for me. Pls. see below.
Tx.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<!--[if lt IE 7]> 
<script type="text/javascript"> 
 
window.onload = function() { 
if (document.getElementsByTagName) { 
var s = document.getElementsByTagName("select"); 
if (s.length > 0) { 
window.select_current = new Array(); 
for (var i=0, select; select = s[i]; i++) { 
select.onfocus = function(){ window.select_current[this.id] = this.selectedIndex; } 
select.onchange = function(){ restore(this); } 
emulate(select); 
} 
} 
} 
}
 
function restore(e) { 
if (e.options[e.selectedIndex].disabled) { 
e.selectedIndex = window.select_current[e.id]; 
} 
} 
 
function emulate(e) { 
for (var i=0, option; option = e.options[i]; i++) { 
if (option.disabled) { 
option.style.color = "graytext"; 
} 
else { 
option.style.color = "menutext"; 
} 
} 
}
 
</script> 
<![endif]-->
 
</head>
<select id="select1" multiple="multiple" >
<option value="AAAAA">AAAAA</option>
<option value="BBBBB" disabled="disabled">BBBBB</option>
<option value="CCCCC">CCCCC</option>
<option value="DDDDD">DDDDD</option>
</select>
<body>
</body>
</html>
                                              
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by: LeprechaunPosted on 2009-08-04 at 12:10:57ID: 25017103

Also, now that I look at it, won't this only change the color? I'm hoping to disable it from being picked, too.

 

by: ReapzPosted on 2009-08-04 at 12:13:21ID: 25017131

Replace <![if lt IE 7]> with <![if IE 7]>... my bad.

 

by: ReapzPosted on 2009-08-04 at 12:14:40ID: 25017146

It does disable it from being picked. I just uploaded it to my server and I'm using IE7. It greys out the disable options and does nothing when you click them.

 

by: LeprechaunPosted on 2009-08-04 at 12:16:35ID: 25017165

Neato. Thank you.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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