Question

I want to disable an HTML DropDown in Rails, and I found this solution:
how to disable the entire dropdown control in html

So, I have this:

f.select( ...., :disabled => true)

But, the problem is, when the DropDown is disabled, it does not show in the params collection.

EDIT:
This is my situation:
I have a form with a text_field and a select field. There are two cases:

• The user creates a new item directly. If so, she will choose a category from the select field.
• The user creates a new item, after redirecting from a category page. In this case, the select field is set to the value of the category, and should be disabled.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this?

Answer 1

As mentioned in my comment in the original question, disabled form element values won’t be present in the params on a form submission. To get around this, try using a hidden field to hold and submit the value you want.

Assuming some variables and whatnot are setup to help decide whether the select field should be disabled:

# ...
f.select(..., :disabled => @category_already_chosen)
f.hidden_field(...) if @category_already_chosen
# ...

Obviously this can be changed to suit your needs, but the basic idea is there. If you’ve already chosen a category and want the select field to be disabled, make a hidden field. If you haven’t chosen a category, omit the hidden field and allow users to make use of the select field.

As shown in the link I posted, this is probably the simplest way to get around this limitation, without resorting to using Javascript to play with parameters after form submission.