Make field visible if "Other" selected in drop down list

[pwizzard]

Is there a way of making a field visible and Required if a particular selection is made in a drop down menu.

For instance I have 4 different options in my drop down menu including "Other" and if Other is selected, I want a new text field to be visible so the user can add more specific information.

Any help or guidance would be appreciated.

[WolfShade]

Done with a lot of JavaScript.  Basically, you set that text field to "display:none;" using CSS so that it's hidden when the page loads.

Then, using either a function or inline JavaScript in the "onchange" event of the select, check the value (or text) of the selected option.  If it's "other", then

document.getElementById("hiddenFieldName").style.display = 'inline'

..and set the form validation to require it if the display is not "none".

^_^

[Fernis · Accepted solution]

If you're using ColdFusion attribute required, I'm not sure how to change that dynamically. But if you're doing client side validtion with javascript - or double checking it after submitting with ColdFusion, this is easy in principle.

<script language="Javascript">

          function checkifother()

          {

                    myselectfield = document.getElementById('myselect');

                    explanationdiv = document.getElementById('explanationdiv');

                    if ( myselectfield.value == 'Other')

                    {explanationdiv.style.display='block'}

                    else

                    {explanationdiv.style.display='none'}

          }

</script>

<cfform name="myform">

          <cfselect name="myselect" id="myselect" onchange="Javascript:checkifother();">

                    <option value="Option 1">Option 1</option>

                    <option value="Option 2">Option 2</option>

                    <option value="Other">Other</option>

                    <option value="Option 4">Option 4</option>

          </cfselect>

          <div id="explanationdiv" style="display:none">

                    <cfinput type="text" name="otherexplanation">

          </div>

</cfform>

[pwizzard]

Thanks, did the job nicely.