Category List in Theme Options Page

Question

I am trying to create a multi-select category list in a theme options page and everything shows up but when i save the options only the last option from the multi-select box that is selected gets saved to the database.

Does someone know what I'm doing wrong perhaps?

Here's bits and pieces of the code I'm currently using:

<?php

$themename_themename = "themename";
$themename_shortname = "themename";
$themename_option_group = $themename_shortname.'_theme_option_group';
$themename_option_name = $themename_shortname.'_theme_options';


// WordPress Categories via an Array
    $wp_cats = array();  
    $categories = get_categories('hide_empty=0&orderby=name');
    foreach ($categories as $category_list) {
        $wp_cats[$category_list->cat_ID] = $category_list->cat_name;
    }
    $categories_tmp = array_unshift($wp_cats, "Select a category:");

// Create theme options
global $themename_settings;

$themename_settings = array (

    // Multi-select
    array(  "name" => __( 'Cat List','themename'), 'id' => $themename_shortname.'_list_cats', 'type' => 'multi-select',
            "desc" => __( 'Multi Select Unorderd Lists in content  area.','themename'),
            'std' => '',
            "value" => $wp_cats ),

);

function themename_settings_page() {


    case 'multi-select':        // Multi-select ?>

        <div class="options_input options_select">
            <div class="options_desc"><?php echo $value['desc']; ?></div>
        <span class="labels"><label for="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>"><?php echo $value['name']; ?></label></span>
            <select name="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>" id="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>" multiple="multiple"  style="height:150px; min-width: 200px;">

            <?php
                $multi_setting = $options[$valueid];
                foreach ($value['value'] as $category_list) {
            ?>
                    <option value="<?php echo $category_list ?>" <?php if($multi_setting != '') { selected($options[$valueid] == $category_list );} else {  selected($options[$valueid] == $value['std']);} ?>><?php echo $category_list; ?></option>
                <?php } ?>
            </select>
        </div>
        <?php
    break;

 } // --themename_settings_page

Here is a temp. screenshot of what is going on: Screenshot

Any help would be very appreciated.

Answer 1

This may be an HTML issue. For a multiple select, the name of needs to end in "[]", to signify an array. So try changing:

<select name="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>" id="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>" multiple="multiple"  style="height:150px; min-width: 200px;">

to

<select name="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>[]" id="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>" multiple="multiple"  style="height:150px; min-width: 200px;">

So you should end up with:

<select name="hurst_theme_options[hurst_content_bullet_cats][]" id="...

Answer 2

Thanks for the help Devin, this is the answer for what ended up working for me in case anyone else stumbles upon this.

<?php
case 'multi-select': // Multi-select ?>

    <div class="options_input options_select">
        <div class="options_desc"><?php echo $value['desc']; ?></div>
        <span class="labels"><label for="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>"><?php echo $value['name']; ?></label></span>
        <select name="themename_theme_options[themename_content_bullet_cats][]" id="<?php echo $themename_option_name.'['.$valueid.']'; ?>" multiple="multiple" size="8">
            <?php /* Get the list of categories */ 
            $cats_selected = $options[$valueid];
            $categories = get_categories();
            foreach ( $categories as $category) :
            ?>
            <option value="<?php echo $category->cat_ID; ?>" <?php if ( $cats_selected && in_array( $category->cat_ID, $cats_selected ) ) { echo 'selected="selected"'; }?>><?php echo $category->cat_name; ?></option>
            <?php endforeach; ?>
        </select>
    </div>
<?php
break;