Dropdown options in widget control panel don't persist

[rickandersonaia]

So I'm working on my first plugin which allows the user to select from a dropdown list in the widget control panel.

The widget works fine in that the option is executed. Unfortunately the option they chose no longer shows in the control panel it reverts back to the default option.

I'm using the 2.8 API & I never learned the previous method.

Any suggestion on how I'd fix this?

Here's what I think are the relevant sections of the code:

 /**
     * How to display the widget on the screen.
     */
 
    function widget( $args, $instance ) {
        extract( $args );
 
        $style = $instance['style']; 
  

 /**
     * Update the widget settings.
     */
 
    function update( $new_instance, $old_instance ) {
        $instance = $old_instance;
        
        $instance['style'] = $new_instance['style'];
                
        return $instance;
    } 
  

function form( $instance ) {
        
        /* Set up some default widget settings. */
        $defaults = array( 'title' => '', 'image' => '', 'link' => '',    'link_text' => '',    'id' =>'',    'style' => '');
        $instance = wp_parse_args( (array) $instance, $defaults ); ?>
 
        
        <!-- Style: Select Box -->
        <p>
            <label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'style' ); ?>"><?php _e('style:', ''); ?></label> 
            <select id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id( 'style' ); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name( 'style' ); ?>" class="widefat" style="width:100%;">
                <option <?php if ( 'standard' == $instance['style'] ) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?>>Standard-Box</option>
                <option <?php if ( 'box2' == $instance['style'] ) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?>>Box-Type-2</option>
                <option <?php if ( 'box3' == $instance['style'] ) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?>>Box-Type-3</option>
                <option <?php if ( 'box4' == $instance['style'] ) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?>>Box-Type-4</option>
                <option <?php if ( 'box5' == $instance['style'] ) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?>>Box-Type-5</option>
                <option <?php if ( 'box6' == $instance['style'] ) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?>>Box-Type-6</option>
            </select>
        </p>
 
    <?php
    }  

[MRDPE]

OK - so I have had the same problem - and it has puzzled me for a couple of days now. Eventually I figured out the problem was the "option" line in the select box:

<option <?php if ( 'box6' == $instance['style'] ) echo 'selected="selected"'; ?>>Box-Type-6</option> 

The "if" statement was not working for whatever reason - so "selected" was never being echoed.

My solution - and I can't really explain why this works - was to break this one line into three (here is the code from my new widget):

   echo '<option ';
  if ($instance["country"] == 'US') {echo 'selected="selected"';} 
  echo ' value="US">United States</option>';
 
  echo '<option ';
        if ($instance["country"] == 'GB') {echo 'selected="selected"';} 
  echo ' value="GB">United Kingdom</option>';
 
  echo '<option ';
        if ($instance["country"] == "CA") {echo 'selected="selected"';} 
  echo ' value="CA">Canada</option>'; 
  

I hope this helps.

MRDPE
http://TheProfessionalEngineer.com

[Otto]

Ugh. Big repetitive if blocks like that will give you cancer.

The WordPress way:

// php code
?>
<option value="US" <?php selected('US', $instance["country"]); ?>>United States</option>
<option value="GB" <?php selected('GB', $instance["country"]); ?>>United Kingdom</option>
<option value="CA" <?php selected('CA', $instance["country"]); ?>>Canada</option>
<?php
// more code  

Got checkboxes? Try the checked() function instead of selected().

[MRDPE]

Thanks - this is great.

I really didn't like those "if blocks".
I tried the code and it works fine.

Thanks again.

MRDPE
http://TheProfessionalEngineer.com