just a quick follow up if i put a alertTextLoad: "please wait" on the rule, that does pop up but never goes away.

I get similar behavior out of your demo if I switch the first input to a select in firebug.

yea it was never intended for selects, it probably is trying to check the value of a select, and it does not exist

Hmm are you sure because the ajax form submit handles the selects perfectly. If I switch the ajaxfield validation to a funcCall that then calls my servlet via ajax that works, but then I run into the "issue'" of it not validating empty fields because required isnt attached.

hmm will have a look soon

I think the issue is here in the success portion of the _ajax: function(field, rules, i, options)

var errorField = $($("input[id='" + errorFieldId +"']")[0]);
If I switch it to this it works:
var errorField = $($("select[id='" + errorFieldId +"']")[0]);

In the form method you have:
// var errorField = $($("#" + errorFieldId)[0]) .... this works for ajaxFormValidation but not for field, I dont know the code well enough to speculate why that is(its even commented out under the ajaxFieldVal)

So this is the fix I've found , on line 1324

change:
var errorField = $($("input[id='" + errorFieldId +"']")[0]);

to:
var errorField = $($("[id='" + errorFieldId +"']")[0]);

I have not tested extensively, but this seems to work for all input types (box, select, radio).

thanks, make sense,

I think :input works too, but im not sure about this line, it strange, it should be $("#"+ errorFieldId).eq(0) or something like that