Drop down menu needs a "choose" (default item).

[edfou]

Hi guys, I would really appreciate some help with this code. How it works now is that it creates a drop down menu for date starting today and for the last 14 days. There is also a time drop down menu. Both correctly retain the selected values if the page is refreshed.
Now in addition I need the following to work:
1. have the word "choose" as the displayed default menu item instead of the initial date and initial time values that show now.
2. secondly if a value is NOT chosen from either menu (and after hitting Submit button) I want the error to display similar to if other required fields are not filled in. It seems that  because the default menu value IS already a day value, the script thinks that there is already a POST from these menus and will therefore not display the error which checks for each menu POST.

<? echo $err_day; ?>
<? echo $err_time; ?>

Here's my script online:
http://www.cmfsc.ca/forms/lostandfound-WORKING.php

Below is the relevant code that needs to be tweaked somehow.

Thanks!!!

Ed

        <tr>
              <td>Date lost/found *</td>
              <td><select name="day">
                    <?
                    date_default_timezone_set("America/Vancouver");
                    $startDay = mktime();
                    $endDay = mktime() - (14 * 24 * 3600);
                    for ($i = $startDay; $i >= $endDay; $i = $i - 86400)
                        {
                        $thisDate = date('l F jS Y', $i);
                                // nothing selected by default
                        $selected = '';
                                // if the form is submitted.
                                // Check that the posted value is the same as this value
                                // if is the same set it to selected.                            
                            if(isset($_POST['day']) && $_POST['day'] == $thisDate)
                            $selected = ' selected';
                                // added the selected attribute here \ /
                            print "<option value=\"$thisDate\"$selected>$thisDate</option>\n";                    
                        }
                    ?>
                        </select>
              </td>          
       </tr>
                    
       <tr>
                 <td>Time lost/found *</td>
                 <td><select name="time">
                    <?
                    $startTime = mktime(9, 00, 0, 0, 0, 0);
                    $endTime = mktime(20, 00, 0, 0, 0, 0);
                    for ($i = $startTime; $i <= $endTime; $i = $i + 1800)    
                        {
                        $thisTime = date('g:i a', $i);
                                // nothing selected by default
                        $selected = '';
                                // if the form is submitted.
                                // Check that the posted value is the same as this value
                                // if is the same set it to selected.
                        if(isset($_POST['time']) && $_POST['time'] == $thisTime)
                            $selected = ' selected';
                                // added the selected attribute here
                               print "<option value=\"$thisTime\"$selected>$thisTime</option>\n";    
                        }
                    ?>
                    </select>                      
    </td>
         </tr>

[Barand]

Make the first option in each select

<option value=''> Choose</option>

If no other is "selected" then the first is shown by default

[edfou]

Hi Barand, thanks a lot for the tip! I used that to touch up the code and it now works great.

Code changes in bold below if anyone else can benefit from this too.

Cheers

Ed

 

              <td>Date lost/found *</td>
              <td><select name="day">
                    <?  print "<option value=\"\">choose</option>\n";
                    date_default_timezone_set("America/Vancouver");
                    $startDay = mktime();
                    $endDay = mktime() - (14 * 24 * 3600);
                    for ($i = $startDay; $i >= $endDay; $i = $i - 86400){
                        $thisDate = date('l F jS Y', $i);
                            // nothing selected by default
                        $selected = '';
                            // if the form is submitted.
                            // Check that the posted value is the same as this value
                            // if is the same set it to selected.                            
                            if(isset($_POST['day']) && $_POST['day'] == $thisDate)
                            $selected = ' selected';
                                // added the selected attribute here \/
                            print "<option value=\"$thisDate\"$selected>$thisDate</option>\n";                                                            
                        }
                        ?>
                        </select>
                      </td>       
                    </tr>
                    
                    <tr>
                         <td></td><td><? echo $err_day; ?></td>
                    </tr>