yosemite1,

Thanks. I determined that I was getting a text field for the option and not a pulldown because I had added only one option for the attribute. I figured I could add just one option and make it a checkbox... but it looks like there have to be at least two options entered (in the attributes administration) in order for things to work. Then I can check the square boxes for those two options under the options tab for a specific product, and then I get a pulldown in the view screen for the object, rather than an empty text field.

All good now.

-Ryan