[hrothbeorht]

thanks inebriate.. I've tried what I can of your suggestions. I have not been able to try it fully becaue I'm not a "JavaScript'r"
(I'm much better at actionscript)

I'll expand on what has been modified. I think I might have left out some important info (sorry)
this is from the post:
http://forum.x-cart.com/showpost.php?p=179500&postcount=18
modifying customer_options.tpl
I replaced:

{foreach from=$v.options item=o}
 <option value="{$o.optionid}"{if $o.selected eq 'Y'} selected="selected"{/if}>{$o.option_name}{if $v.is_modifier eq 'Y' && $o.price_modifier ne 0} ({if $o.modifier_type ne '%'}{include file="currency.tpl" value=$o.price_modifier display_sign=1 plain_text_message=1}{else}{$o.price_modifier}%{/if}){/if}</option>
{/foreach}

with:

{if $product.productid ne '9' && $product.productid ne '3' }
<option>Select {$v.classtext|default:$v.class}{if $o.selected eq 'Y'} selected="selected"{/if}</option> {/if}
{foreach from=$v.options item=o}
    <option value="{$o.optionid}">{$o.option_name}{if $v.is_modifier eq 'Y' && $o.price_modifier ne 0} ({if $o.modifier_type ne '%'}{include file="currency.tpl" value=$o.price_modifier display_sign=1 plain_text_message=1}{else}{$o.price_modifier}%{/if}){/if}</option>
{/foreach}

I wish I knew how to take your advice regarding:

also, if you dont use color-size combo validations, then you can just change the if statement to check if the index is 0 or if the value contains "select" instead of checking against all the sizes and colors

I don't know how check for what shows as the default value of the drop down menus. When I create the variations, I add only XL, L, M and small
for men_size and black, offwhite for colour_001.

It worked perfectly with one drop down.. I've tried about 50 variation in as many ways as I can to get it to work with two. I really appreciate the help but sadly I just don't get it yet

my latest rendition (still wrong) looks like this:

var value = product_option_value("men_size");
var value2 = product_option_value("colour_001");
if ((value !== 'XL' && value !== 'L' && value !== 'M' && value !== 'S') && (value2 !== 'black' && value2 !== 'offwhite')){
alert ("please choose a size and colour");
return false;
}
elseif (value !== 'XL' && value !== 'L' && value !== 'M' && value !== 'S'){
alert ("please choose a size");
return false;
}
else (value2 !== 'black' && value2 !== 'offwhite'){
alert ("please choose a colour");
return false;
}

I changed off-white to offwhite because I thought it might cause a problem.
I tried using elseif and I've tried removing the "return false" in a few places.
I've tried an elseif where you see the else. ..

still trying.. still experimenting.. but still in need of help~!

when I view the source of the page I see this where the drop down menus are:

<tr>
 <td valign="middle" height="25">size</td>
 <td valign="middle">
<select id="po462" name="product_options[462]" onchange="javascript: check_options();">
<option>Select size</option>     <option value="4187">S</option>
    <option value="4186">M</option>
    <option value="4185">L</option>
    <option value="4184">XL</option>
</select>
 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
 <td valign="middle" height="25">colour</td>
 <td valign="middle">
<select id="po464" name="product_options[464]" onchange="javascript: check_options();">
<option>Select colour</option>     <option value="4190">black</option>
    <option value="4191">offwhite</option>
</select>
 </td>
</tr>