Can an HTML <select> element have a default selectedIndex of -1 without running page-wide javascript?

Question

I have several places in my website where a "combobox" style control is needed. To do this, I've encapsulated the combobox control into a .NET server-side component for re-usability. Some pages may have a combobox on them, some may not.

At the core, this combobox contains a textbox and a "dropdown" aligned appropriately with CSS. Part of the HTML rendered is simply:

<select>
    <option>Option 1</option>
    <option>Option 2</option>
    <option>Option 3</option>
    <option>Option 4</option>
</select>

The dropdown must start off empty, and changing to any value (including "Option 1") must trigger the onchange event.

I accomplish this by doing something like:

document.getElementById("theSelectElement").selectedIndex = -1;

but I'd prefer not to have to run javascript against each element on the page. I realize that I could use jQuery to select against a CSS class, but most pages won't have a select element on it and nothing will happen.

Is there a way to set selectedIndex that's encapsulated in the tag itself? Something like:

<select selectedIndex="-1">...

or

<select onload="this.selectedIndex = -1">...

?

Solution 1

You may use the following: By default the first option will be selected automatically

<select name="aaa">
    <option value="0">select any option</option>
    <option value="1">Option 1</option>
    <option value="2">Option 2</option>
    <option value="3">Option 3</option>
    <option value="4">Option 4</option>
</select>

Solution 2

Here is some documentation of select: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#h-17.6

Comments

[Doozer Blake]

Can you not add an empty option as the first one?

[Mike]

yeah, but I need the default value to be empty (it's part of how a standard combobox is expected to work)

[Ghazanfar Mir]

then set the value property of the first option as empty. And if you don't need the text either of the first option then go for the @wes asnwwer.

[Mike]

that's true, but not really the point of the question. I'm really asking how the rendered HTML can accomplish the goal of having a blank initial state.