Dropdown

A drop-down menu allows respondents to select a single answer from a list of choices. You can use drop-down menus for questions that have multiple options but accept only one answer. This example demonstrates how to create and configure a drop-down question in SurveyJS Form Library. Switch between Angular, React, Knockout, jQuery, and Vue to view a demo version for your JavaScript framework.

To create a drop-down menu form field, define an object with the type property set to "dropdown" and add it to the elements array. Use the choices array to specify choice values. Each object in this array should have the following structure:

{
  "value": any, // A unique value to be saved in the survey results.
  "text": String // A display text. When `text` is undefined, `value` is used as display text.
}

If you need to specify only the value property, you can set the choices property to an array of primitive values as shown in this demo. These values are both saved in survey results and used as display text.

You can also load choice values from a RESTful web service. In this case, use the choicesByUrl property instead of the choices array. Refer to following demo for more information: Load Data from Web Services.

Choices are sorted according to the choices array. If you want to sort them in ascending or descending alphabetical order, assign "asc" or "desc" to the choicesOrder property. Alternatively, you can set this property to "random" to sort choices in random order each time your survey is displayed. You can change the sort order at runtime in this demo.

Respondents can search the drop-down list for a required item. To do this, enter a filter string into the input field. If you want to disable this functionality, set the searchEnabled property to false.

Special choices are the "None" and "Other" options. "None" is used when none of the proposed options suit a respondent; "Other" allows respondents to enter their own option into a comment area.

To display the None and Other options, enable the showNoneItem and showOtherItem properties. You can also set the noneText and otherText properties to change the captions of the special choices. In this demo, you can show and hide the "Other" option and change its caption at runtime.

When respondents select "Other", the value they enter into the comment area is saved in a separate property. The property name is composed of the question name and commentSuffix. For example, if the question name is "car", the survey result will be as follows:

{
  "car": "other",
  "car-Comment": "Custom value"
}

If you want to use the question name as a key to store the comment value, disable the storeOthersAsComment property in SurveyModel. In this case, you will get the following survey result:

{
  "car": "Custom value"
}