Hi Simon.

I have found a way how you can do it, but you need to modify the view for the FieldType.DropDownList. In Contour have have the option to set an default value. like the screenshot shows below. The FieldType.DropDownList.cshtml file is located here: /Umbraco/Plugins/umbracoContour/Views

To get this working for DropDownList, you simply need to add @Model.Value to the empty option tag.

So you simply change this:

@model Umbraco.Forms.Mvc.Models.FieldViewModel
<select name="@Model.Name" id="@Model.Id"
@if (Model.Mandatory){<text> data-val="true" data-val-required="@Model.RequiredErrorMessage"</text>}
>
    <option value=""></option>
    @foreach (var pv in Model.PreValues)
    {
        <option value="@pv.Value" 
        @if (Model.ContainsValue(pv.Value))
        {<text>selected="selected"</text>}
        >@pv.Value</option>
    }
</select>

To the following:

@model Umbraco.Forms.Mvc.Models.FieldViewModel
<select name="@Model.Name" id="@Model.Id"
@if (Model.Mandatory){<text> data-val="true" data-val-required="@Model.RequiredErrorMessage"</text>}
>
    <option value="">@Model.Value</option>
    @foreach (var pv in Model.PreValues)
    {
        <option value="@pv.Value" 
        @if (Model.ContainsValue(pv.Value))
        {<text>selected="selected"</text>}
        >@pv.Value</option>
    }
</select>

Just keep in mind that you maybe need to do these changes again if you update Contour to a newer version late on.

Hope this helps,

/Dennis