Question

Many instances when I have html like this, i follow it with jquery to set the value. However I feel this is not the best way to do it and was looking for alternatives.

 <select class='papertype' name='papertype'>
      <option value='glossy'>Glossy</option>
      <option value='matte'>Matte</option>
      <option value='luster'>Luster</option>
      <option value='metallic'>Metallic</option>
 </select>

$(document).ready(function(){
    $('.papertype').val('<?php print $image->paper_type; ?>');
}

Im hoping to do this without using any type of javascript, completely server side. An important factor thats causing the problem is that the page I am coding right now has multiple instances of .papertype, all of which will have different values. Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

 <select class='papertype' name='papertype'>
      <option value='glossy' <?php echo ($image->paper_type == 'glossy' ? ' selected="selected"' : ''); ?>>Glossy</option>
      <option value='matte' <?php echo ($image->paper_type == 'matte' ? ' selected="selected"' : ''); ?>>Matte</option>
      <option value='luster' <?php echo ($image->paper_type == 'luster' ? ' selected="selected"' : ''); ?>>Luster</option>
      <option value='metallic' <?php echo ($image->paper_type == 'metallic' ? ' selected="selected"' : ''); ?>>Metallic</option>
 </select>

Of course, you can do that in a more elegant way on a higher abstraction level with arrays etc., but you get the idea.