Set the selected item in a select list based on template value

Question

How can you correctly pre-populate a select control with the current value from the template?

I have a simple form to edit a record where the values for the selected

Answer 1

I had almost an identical problem, but values I was passing were numbers and I believe I have a cleaner solution for that specific case, that is without depending on Handlebars magic.

In the template:

    Primary Style
    Secondary Style

you basically pass the number of the attribute you want selected with _val. This is useful only in a case where each option has a consecutive numerical value. Also note, if you name this attribute 'value', it will get overwritten/ignored by the default, which selects first option.

Now in the .rendered callback in your JS file:

Template.templateName.rendered = () ->
    var btn_style = $('#button-style').attr('_val')
    $('#button-style option:nth-child(' + btn_style + ')').attr('selected', 'selected')

This simply selects the 'nth' option in this select field which corresponds to the value we want.