ng-options how to set first select always blank

This will do the work for you:

<select size="3" ng-model="item" ng-options="s.name for s in itemlist">
    <option value="">Select Option</option>
</select>

For anyone out there that treat "null" as valid value for one of the options (so imagine that "null" is a value of one of the items in typeOptions in example below), I found that simplest way to make sure that automatically added option is hidden is to use ng-if.

<select ng-options="option.value as option.name for option in typeOptions">
    <option value="" ng-if="false"></option>
</select>

Why ng-if and not ng-hide? Because you want css selectors that would target first option inside above select to target "real" option, not the one that's hidden. It gets useful when you're using protractor for e2e testing and (for whatever reason) you use by.css() to target select options.

Kevin - Sưu Tầm

You can forgo using the ng-options and use ng-repeat instead and make the first option blank. See example below.

<select size="3" ng-model="item">
    <option value="?" selected="selected"></option>
    <option ng-repeat="s in itemlist" value="{{s.value}}">{{s.name}}</option>
</select>