jQuery cookies setting select drop down value after page refresh

Question

In all honesty my brain is rather fried after getting this far today.

I am trying to save the state of multiple select drop downs on page using this plugin:

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/cookies

I am using this jQuery to set cookies for the different title drop downs based on their ID:

$(document).ready(function() {

// hide 'Other' inputs to start
$('.jOther').hide();

// event listener on all select drop downs with class of jTitle 
$(".jTitle").change(function(){

    //set the select value
    var val = $(this).val();

    if(val != "Other") {
        //$(this).nextAll('.jOther').hide();
        $(this).parent().find(".jOther").hide();
    } else {
        //$(this).nextAll('.jOther').show();
        $(this).parent().find(".jOther").show();
    }

    // Sets a cookie with named after the title field's ID attribute 
    $(this).cookify();

});

$(".jTitle").each(function(){

    // get the id of each Title select drop down
    var $titleId = $(this).attr('id');

    // get the value of the cookie for each cookie created above in $(this).cookify()
    var $cookieValue = $.cookies.get($titleId);

    // if value is 'Other' make sure it is shown on page refresh
    if ($cookieValue == 'Other') {

        // Show the other input
        $(this).parent().find(".jOther").show();

        // set select value to 'Other'
        $(this).val('Other');

    } else {

        // set to whatever is in the cookie
        $(this).val($cookieValue);

    }                       

}); 

});

What is happening is that when no cookies are set the select drop down is displaying a blank option when i want it to default to 'Please select'.

Sample HTML that i am using:

<td>
<select id="titleDepend1" class="inlineSpace jTitle">
    <option value="Please select">Please select...</option>
    <option value="Mr">Mr</option>
    <option value="Mrs">Mrs</option>
    <option value="Ms">Ms</option>
    <option value="Miss">Miss</option>
    <option value="Dr">Dr</option>
    <option value="Other">Other</option>
</select>
<label for="otherDepend1" class="inlineSpace jOther">Other</label>
<input type="text" class="text jOther" name="otherDepend1" id="otherDepend1" maxlength="6" />

So if it is the first time the user is on page and they have not clicked any drop downs the first value will be null rather than 'Please select'.

Answer 1

I'd change this portion, if the cookie isn't there, just don't mess with the dropdown:

$(".jTitle").each(function(){
  var $titleId = $(this).attr('id');
  var $cookieValue = $.cookies.get($titleId);
  if ($cookieValue == 'Other') {
    $(this).parent().find(".jOther").show();
    $(this).val('Other');
  } else if($cookieValue) {
    $(this).val($cookieValue);
  }                       
});

The only change is to add an if check on the end, see if there is a cookie...if not the default position of 0 in the dropdown (browser default) will be left alone.