Dropdown Elements

Overview

Dropdowns are comprised of two element types: Watir::Select and Watir::Option

These are accessed by calling Browser#select or Browser#select_list. Creating a SelectCollection is accomplished with Browser#selects or Browser#select_lists, and an OptionColection by Browser#options or Select#options. For all of the different ways of locating a Select element, take a look at our Locating Elements Guide.

Note that Option elements should generally be accessed via a Select element instance.

Browser Drivers treat Option elements differently than other elements. They are the only element type that does not need to be displayed on the page in order to click them. That means you do not have to first click the Select element to use it.

Note that there are a many Dropdown implementation that combine JavaScript with non-standard elements to achieve this affect. Because these elements are not handled in the same way as Option and Select elements, they can not be treated as Dropdowns by Watir.

Select and Option elements also inherit methods from standard Web Elements

Common or Special Methods

Select#include?
Select#select
Select#text
Select#value
Select#clear - this only applies if the checklist has a multiple attribute

Standard Setter Interface

This functionality was added in Watir 7 beta 2.

Select#set is an alias of #select. It takes a number of different argument types:

When the first parameter value is a String or a Regexp, Watir will select the first Option that matches by value, text or label attributes.
When the first parameter is a value is a Numeric, Watir will convert it to a String and select the first Option that matches by value, text or label.
When the :value, :text or :label keywords are used, Watir will select the first Option that matches on that particular attribute.
When an Array or multiple parameters are passed in, Watir treats the Select object as having the attribute multiple, and will select every Option that matches each value in the Array by value, text or label attributes.

Example

browser = Watir::Browser.start 'watir.com/examples/simple_form.html'

# Non-Multiple Select List
country_dropdown = browser.select(id: 'country')
country_dropdown.text == 'select your country' # => true
country_dropdown.include? '1' # => true
country_dropdown.include? 'Sweden' # => true
country_dropdown.select /en/
country_dropdown.value == '1' # => true
country_dropdown.select(text: 'Denmark')
country_dropdown.selected?('Denmark') == true # => true
country_dropdown.select(text: 'Denmark')
country_dropdown.selected?('1') == true # => true
country_dropdown.select(value: '2')
country_dropdown.selected?('Norway') == true # => true
country_dropdown.select(label: 'Sverige')
country_dropdown.selected?('Sweden') == true # => true

# Multiple Select List
country_dropdown = browser.select(id: 'languages')
country_dropdown.text == 'EN' # => true (first matching option)
country_dropdown.clear
country_dropdown.text.nil? # => true
country_dropdown.select /an/ # Not an Array, so only first matching selected
country_dropdown.value == '1' # => true
country_dropdown.selected?('3') == false # => true 
country_dropdown.select [/an/] # An Array, so only first matching selected
country_dropdown.value == '1' # => true (value of first selected)
country_dropdown.selected?('3') == true # => true (all matching selected)

browser.close