Question

I have a select with f.e. 10 options (‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, …). Loading the page the first option ‘one’ is selected.

Within a function I set to fifth option

$("myselect").val('five');

In fact now fifths option is shown in select and value also is set correct.

But now I tab on in my form until I reach this select. And if I now use keyboard down key, the select jumps to option ‘two’ and not ‘six’.

How to set a selected option which works for a later keyboard use, too?

Answer 1

Try setting the selectedIndex property. See below,

$('#myselect').val("5").prop('selectedIndex', 4);

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/kLZ7z/

Another better cleaner approach is

var nValue = "5";
$('option', '#myselect').filter(function () {        
    return this.value == nValue;
}).prop('selected', true);

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/kLZ7z/2/