how to disable the entire dropdown control in html

Question

i see there is a disabled property on a specific item in the dropdown list but is there an enabled property on the whole html dropdown itself?

any suggestions?

disabled="disabled" should work on the select element too – Mercer Traieste Aug 04 '09 at 12:30 — Mercer Traieste, Aug 04 '09 at 12:30
Why wouldn't you just *try* something like this? – chaos Aug 04 '09 at 12:30 — chaos, Aug 04 '09 at 12:30
I think what you're looking for is the ` – Joey Aug 04 '09 at 12:32 — Joey, Aug 04 '09 at 12:32

score 34 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 04 '09 at 12:30

34

According to the HTML 4 spec a select element has a disabled attribute.

So

<select disabled>
  <option>Something</option>
</select>

should work

answered Aug 04 '09 at 12:30

Joey

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score 15 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 16 '12 at 22:46

disabled="disabled"

This will disable a value within the combo box (it will still show up, but it will not have the ability to be selected):

<select>
  <option disabled="disabled" value="volvo">Volvo</option>
  <option value="saab">Saab</option>
  <option value="mercedes">Mercedes</option>
  <option value="audi">Audi</option>
</select>

This will disable the whole combo box:

<select disabled="disabled">
  <option value="volvo">Volvo</option>
  <option value="saab">Saab</option>
  <option value="mercedes">Mercedes</option>
  <option value="audi">Audi</option>
</select>

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 04 '09 at 12:35

may this will help

is same as :

<html>
    <head>
       <script type="text/javascript">
          function makeDisable(){
          var x=document.getElementById("mySelect")
          x.disabled=true
          }
         function makeEnable(){
             var x=document.getElementById("mySelect")
              x.disabled=false
         }</script></head><body><form>
        <select id="mySelect"><option>Apple</option><option>Banana</option>
        <option>Orange</option>
        </select>
        <input type="button" onclick="makeDisable()" value="Disable list">
        <input type="button" onclick="makeEnable()" value="Enable list">
        </form>
        </body>
       </html>

how would i do this with buttons. i want this to be disable from the initial page load — leora, Aug 04 '09 at 12:41

how to disable the entire dropdown control in html

3 Answers3

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