Change <select>'s option and trigger events with JavaScript

Unfortunately, you need to manually fire the change event. And using the Event Constructor will be the best solution.

var select = document.querySelector('#sel'),
    input = document.querySelector('input[type="button"]');
select.addEventListener('change',function(){
    alert('changed');
});
input.addEventListener('click',function(){
    select.value = 2;
    select.dispatchEvent(new Event('change'));
});

<select id="sel" onchange='alert("changed")'>
  <option value='1'>One</option>
  <option value='2'>Two</option>
  <option value='3' selected>Three</option>
</select>
<input type="button" value="Change option to 2" />

And, of course, the Event constructor is not supported in IE. So you may need to polyfill with this:

function Event( event, params ) {
    params = params || { bubbles: false, cancelable: false, detail: undefined };
    var evt = document.createEvent( 'CustomEvent' );
    evt.initCustomEvent( event, params.bubbles, params.cancelable, params.detail );
    return evt;
}

Fiddle of my solution is here. But just in case it expires I will paste the code as well.

HTML:

<select id="sel">
  <option value='1'>One</option>
  <option value='2'>Two</option>
  <option value='3'>Three</option>
</select>
<input type="button" id="button" value="Change option to 2" />

JS:

var sel = document.getElementById('sel'),
    button = document.getElementById('button');

button.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
    sel.options[1].selected = true;

    // firing the event properly according to StackOverflow
    // http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2856513/how-can-i-trigger-an-onchange-event-manually
    if ("createEvent" in document) {
        var evt = document.createEvent("HTMLEvents");
        evt.initEvent("change", false, true);
        sel.dispatchEvent(evt);
    }
    else {
        sel.fireEvent("onchange");
    }
});

sel.addEventListener('change', function (e) {
    alert('changed');
});

It is as simple as this:

var sel = document.getElementById('sel');
var button = document.getElementById('button');

button.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
    sel.options[1].selected = true;
    sel.onchange();
});

But this way has a problem. You can't call events just like you would, with normal functions, because there may be more than one function listening for an event, and they can get set in several different ways.

Unfortunately, the 'right way' to fire an event is not so easy because you have to do it differently in Internet Explorer (using document.createEventObject) and Firefox (using document.createEvent("HTMLEvents"))

var sel = document.getElementById('sel');
var button = document.getElementById('button');

button.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
    sel.options[1].selected = true;
    fireEvent(sel,'change');

});


function fireEvent(element,event){
    if (document.createEventObject){
    // dispatch for IE
    var evt = document.createEventObject();
    return element.fireEvent('on'+event,evt)
    }
    else{
    // dispatch for firefox + others
    var evt = document.createEvent("HTMLEvents");
    evt.initEvent(event, true, true ); // event type,bubbling,cancelable
    return !element.dispatchEvent(evt);
    }
}