I have set up the following select for changing semesters on page. When the select detects a change, the changeSemesters function is fired, which runs an AJAX that replaces the current data on the page with data specific to the selected semester.

View

<select data-bind=options: semestersArr, optionsText: 'name', optionsValue: 'id', value: selectedSemester, event: { change: changeSemesters }></select>

ViewModel

this.selectedSemester = ko.observable();



//runs on page load

var getSemesters = function() {

  var self = this, current;



  return $.get('api/semesters', function(data) {

    self.semestersArr(ko.utils.arrayMap(data.semesters, function(semester) {

      if (semester.current) current = semester.id;

      return new Model.Semester(semester);

    }));



    self.selectedSemester(current);

  });

};



var changeSemesters = function() {

  // run ajax to get new data

};

The problem is that the change event in the select fires the changeSemester function when the page loads and sets the default value. Is there a way to avoid that without the use of a button?