It would be nice to create an option like firstEmpty : true

(which maybe by default is false) to automatically create a blank <option> on the top of the select on UDF init.

If you want, i can try to make a patch for this

It's not very wise. The purpose of this plugin - to "decorate" the existing without modifying it's standard behaviour (let's ignore filtering for a minute). So it's 1. not a defect, 2. it's better to add an "Select something" in the server-side code, rather than increasing complexity with this feature. 3. the right implementation would be not adding a new option, but just modify function "setInputFromMaster" to make it set "this.input.val('');" if an option is set.

Doing this is in effect adding a new option element, as the list is backed by and reflects the real select list; this is the "unobtrusive" part of the name.

If you want the user to be able to submit an empty value - add it in the original. You can then have a value submit (e.g. ) and your server can interpret it as needed.

if you really want clientside to add the empty value, just do this:

$("select").prepend("");