Select Box in Magento

Hello All,

I am listing here a useful topic related to Magento.

Below is the description to generate a select box using inbuilt functions of Magento.

Lets take an example of displaying a select box containing all the catalog products.

I am using the existing core files for better understanding, you are recommended make new module or override existing files

Lets use helper file of Catalog, app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Helper/Data.php

Paste these two functions at the bottom of the file, before ending of class.

//get all products
	public function getProductOptions()
    {
    	$products_collection = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection()->addStoreFilter()->addAttributeToSelect('*') ; //for fetching all the products
    	$cnt = $products_collection->count();
    	
        $options = array();
		$options[] = array(
				       		'label' => 'Please Select Product',
				       		'value' => ''
					       	);
		if($cnt>0)
		{  	
			foreach ($products_collection as $_product)
			{
				$options[] = array(
					       		'label' => $_product->getName(),
					       		'value' => $_product->getId()
					       	);
			}
		}	
		return $options;
    }
    
    //below function for getting products	
	public function getProductsHtmlSelect($pid)
    {    	
        $tmp = Mage::app()->getLayout()->createBlock('core/html_select')
            ->setName('product_id')
            ->setId('product_id')
            ->setClass('validate-select')          
            ->setExtraParams('onchange="getOptions()"');          
	        if(!empty($pid))
	        {
	        	$tmp = $tmp->setValue($pid);
	        }
        $select =  $tmp->setOptions($this->getProductOptions());		
		
        return $select->getHtml();
    }

Below code to be written in any view file, where a select box need to be displayed. Lets say header.phtml

echo Mage::helper('catalog')->getProductsHtmlSelect(1); //note 1 is the id of product which needs to kept default selected, you can pass any id of product

This will display all the products as options in a select box, where product with id 1 will be kept selected by default.

Hope this is helpful.