jquery.select-multiple.js

This is an awesome user-friendlier drop-in replacement for the standard <select> with multiple attribute activated.

Demos

http://krazedkrish.github.io/select-multiple/#demos

Features

Free (under MIT license)
Works in an unobtrusive fashion
Fully open sourced
Keyboard support
Provides some callbacks
Fully customizable via CSS
Depends on jQuery 1.8+
Tiny code ~8kb minified
Rails gem

Dependencies

jQuery 1.8+

Usage

HTML

<html>
  <head>
    <link href="https://github.com/krazedkrish/select-multiple/blob/master/path/to/select-multiple.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
  </head>
  <body>
    <select multiple="multiple" id="my-select" name="my-select[]">
      <option value='elem_1'>elem 1</option>
      <option value='elem_2'>elem 2</option>
      <option value='elem_3'>elem 3</option>
      <option value='elem_4'>elem 4</option>
      ...
      <option value='elem_100'>elem 100</option>
    </select>
    <script src="https://github.com/krazedkrish/select-multiple/raw/master/path/to/jquery.select-multiple.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
  </body>
</html>

JavaScript

$('#my-select').selectMultiple()

Options

Name	type	default	description
afterInit	function	function(container){}	Function to call after the selectMultiple initilization.
afterSelect	function	function(values){}	Function to call after one item is selected.
afterDeselect	function	function(values){}	Function to call after one item is deselected.
selectableHeader	HTML/Text	null	Text or HTML to display in the selectable header.
selectableFooter	HTML/Text	null	Text or HTML to display in the selectable footer.
disabledClass	String	'disabled'	CSS class for disabled items.
selectableOptgroup	Boolean	false	Click on optgroup will select all nested options when set to true.
dblClick	Boolean	false	Replace the defautl click event to select items by the dblclick one.
cssClass	String	""	Add a custom CSS class to the selectmultiple container.
allowHTML	Boolean	false	Don't escape items' HTML

Methods

.selectMultiple(options)

Activates your content as a selectmultiple. Accepts an optional options object

$('#your-select').selectMultiple({});

Note: You must init the multiple select with $('#your-select').selectMultiple() before calling one of the following methods. .selectMultiple('select', String|Array)

Select the item with the value given in parameter. The value can be either a string ('elem_1') matching the value of the option oran Array of values (['elem_1', 'elem_42']).

$('#your-select').selectMultiple('select', String|Array);

.selectMultiple('deselect', String|Array)

Deselect the item with the value given in parameter. The value can be either a string ('elem_1') matching the value of the option oran Array of values (['elem_1', 'elem_42']).

$('#your-select').selectMultiple('deselect', String|Array);

.selectMultiple('select_all')

Select all elements.

$('#your-select').selectMultiple('deselect_all');

.selectMultiple('deselect_all')

Deselect all items previously selected.

$('#your-select').selectMultiple('select_all');

.selectMultiple('refresh')

Refresh current selectmultiple.

$('#your-select').selectMultiple('refresh');

.selectMultiple('addOption', Hash)

Dynamically add option to the selectmultiple. The options hash is described below:

key	type	required	desription
value	String	true	The value of the option to create
text	String	true	The text of the option to create
index	Number	false	The index where to insert the option. If none given, it will be inserted as last option.
nested	String	false	If there are optgroups you can choose under which optgroup you want to insert the option.

$('#your-select').selectMultiple('addOption', { value: 'test', text: 'test', index: 0, nested: 'optgroup_label' });

Keyboard

key	function
`↓`	Down arrow Select next item in the focused list
`↑`	Up arrow Select previous item in the focused list
`—`	Space Add/remove item depending on which list is currently focused

Pre-selected options

<select id='pre-selected-options' multiple='multiple'>
  <option value='elem_1' selected>elem 1</option>
  <option value='elem_2'>elem 2</option>
  <option value='elem_3'>elem 3</option>
  <option value='elem_4' selected>elem 4</option>
  ...
  <option value='elem_100'>elem 100</option>
</select>

$('#pre-selected-options').selectMultiple();

Callbacks

<select id='callbacks' multiple='multiple'>
  <option value='elem_1'>elem 1</option>
  <option value='elem_2'>elem 2</option>
  <option value='elem_3'>elem 3</option>
  <option value='elem_4'>elem 4</option>
  ...
  <option value='elem_100'>elem 100</option>
</select>

$('#callbacks').selectMultiple({
  afterSelect: function(values){
    alert("Select value: "+values);
  },
  afterDeselect: function(values){
    alert("Deselect value: "+values);
  }
});

Public methods

select all / deselect all
select 100 elems / deselect 100 elems
Add option
refresh

<a href='#' id='select-all'>select all</a>
<a href='#' id='deselect-all'>deselect all</a>
<a href='#' id='select-100'>select 100 elems</a>
<a href='#' id='deselect-100'>deselect 100 elems</a>
<select id='public-methods' multiple='multiple'>
  <option value='elem_1'>elem 1</option>
  <option value='elem_2' disabled>elem 2</option>
  <option value='elem_3'>elem 3</option>
  <option value='elem_4'>elem 4</option>
  ...
  <option value='elem_1000'>elem 100</option>
</select>

$('#public-methods').selectMultiple();
$('#select-all').click(function(){
  $('#public-methods').selectMultiple('select_all');
  return false;
});
$('#deselect-all').click(function(){
  $('#public-methods').selectMultiple('deselect_all');
  return false;
});
$('#select-100').click(function(){
  $('#public-methods').selectMultiple('select', ['elem_0', 'elem_1' ..., 'elem_99']);
  return false;
});
$('#deselect-100').click(function(){
  $('#public-methods').selectMultiple('deselect', ['elem_0', 'elem_1' ..., 'elem_99']);
  return false;
});
$('#refresh').on('click', function(){
  $('#public-methods').selectMultiple('refresh');
  return false;
});
$('#add-option').on('click', function(){
  $('#public-methods').selectMultiple('addOption', { value: 42, text: 'test 42', index: 0 });
  return false;
});

Optgroup

<select id='optgroup' multiple='multiple'>
  <optgroup label='Friends'>
    <option value='1'>Yoda</option>
    <option value='2' selected>Obiwan</option>
  </optgroup>
  <optgroup label='Enemies'>
    <option value='3'>Palpatine</option>
    <option value='4' disabled>Darth Vader</option>
  </optgroup>
</select>

$('#optgroup').selectMultiple({ selectableOptgroup: true });

Disabled attribute

<select id='disabled-attribute' disabled='disabled' multiple='multiple'>
  <option value='elem_1'>elem 1</option>
  <option value='elem_2'>elem 2</option>
  <option value='elem_3'>elem 3</option>
  <option value='elem_4'>elem 4</option>
  ...
  <option value='elem_100'>elem 100</option>
</select>

$('#disabled-attribute').selectMultiple();

Note: You can also deactivate option one by one by adding disabled attribute to each option you want to disable

Custom headers and footers

<select id='custom-headers' multiple='multiple'>
  <option value='elem_1'>elem 1</option>
  <option value='elem_2'>elem 2</option>
  <option value='elem_3'>elem 3</option>
  <option value='elem_4'>elem 4</option>
  ...
  <option value='elem_100'>elem 100</option>
</select>

$('#custom-headers').selectMultiple({
  selectableHeader: "<div class='custom-header'>Selectable items</div>",
  selectableFooter: "<div class='custom-header'>Selectable footer</div>"
});

Searchable

Note: This feature is not built-in but depends on an other plugin. I personnally use the excellent quicksearch library, but you can use whatever library you like.

<select id='custom-headers' multiple='multiple'>
  <option value='elem_1' selected>elem 1</option>
  <option value='elem_2'>elem 2</option>
  <option value='elem_3'>elem 3</option>
  <option value='elem_4' selected>elem 4</option>
  ...
  <option value='elem_100'>elem 100</option>
</select>

$('.searchable').selectMultiple({
  selectableHeader: "<input type='text' class='search-input' autocomplete='off' placeholder='try \"12\"'>",
  afterInit: function(ms){
    var that = this,
        $selectableSearch = that.$selectableUl.prev(),
        selectableSearchString = '#'+that.$container.attr('id')+' .ms-elem-selectable';

    that.qs1 = $selectableSearch.quicksearch(selectableSearchString)
    .on('keydown', function(e){
      if (e.which === 40){
        that.$selectableUl.focus();
        return false;
      }
    });
  },
  afterSelect: function(){
    this.qs1.cache();
  },
  afterDeselect: function(){
    this.qs1.cache();
  }
});

Documentation

http://krazedkrish.github.io/select-multiple

References:

Based on https://github.com/lou/multi-select/

krazedkrish / select-multiple

readme