A drop-down list (abbreviated drop-down, or DDL; also known as a drop-down menu, drop menu, pull-down list, picklist) is a graphical control element, similar to a
list box
A list box is a graphical control element that allows the user to select one or more items from a list contained within a static, multiple line text box. The user clicks inside the box on an item to select it, sometimes in combination with the ...
, that allows the user to choose one value from a list. When a drop-down list is inactive, it displays a single value. When activated, it displays (drops down) a list of values, from which the user may select one. When the user selects a new value, the control reverts to its inactive state, displaying the selected value. It is often used in the design of graphical user interfaces, including
web design
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...
.
Terminology
This type of control is called a "pop-up menu" on the
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
platform; however, the term "popup menu" is used to refer to
context menu
A context menu (also called contextual, shortcut, and pop up or pop-up menu) is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choic ...
s in other GUI systems. The Macintosh also has the notion of "pull-down menus". The distinction is that, when the menu is closed, a pop-up menu's title shows the last-selected item while a pull-down menu shows a static title like a menu in the menu bar. Thus, the uses are different—popup menus are used to select a single option from a list while pull-down menus are used to issue commands or in cases where multiple options can be selected.
HTML elements
An HTML element is a type of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) document component, one of several types of HTML nodes (there are also text nodes, comment nodes and others). The first used version of HTML was written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993 ...
and are used to display a drop-down menu:
See also
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Combo box
A combo box is a commonly used graphical user interface widget (or control). Traditionally, it is a combination of a drop-down list or list box and a single-line editable textbox, allowing the user to either type a value directly or select a v ...
*
List box
A list box is a graphical control element that allows the user to select one or more items from a list contained within a static, multiple line text box. The user clicks inside the box on an item to select it, sometimes in combination with the ...