Support for boolean operators in Multiple Select list box

[IanMayo]

I believe it's a fairly common usage to use Chosen to build up fields for a faceted search (in the countries example this would be selecting items in the control to trigger a "search for results in Brazil and Algeria").

It would be a great step forward to include a boolean +/- UI toggle element at the left-hand side of the widget. So, after adding Brazil and Algeria items to the multi-select, the user could click on the + icon at the left-hand of the Algeria widget. The '+' would turn into '-', and the app would process this as "search for results in Brazil but not Algeria".

[pfiller]

I see a lot of complexity in this kind of request and I'm not sure what the gain is. If people want to add and remove Brazil and Algeria, the multiple select option makes this fairly straightforward. What is the use case for searching "brazil -algeria"?

[IanMayo]

Hi there @pfiller , sorrry I didn't get chance to discuss the use case before you closed it.

An example of the use case would be on a shopping site: I'm interested in the cheapest wifi-only tablets, so from the "Features" drop down I select "Colour", "Wifi", and "-Cellular data". Obviously, if I hadn't selected -Cellular Data I wouldn't just get the wifi-only tablets.

When searching for holidays, I may wish to enter "Watersports", "Beach", "Pool", "Warm Climate", -"Family" if I'm looking for an adults-only summer resort (not that I'll be doing that for few years, mind you...).

My example was poor - I gave an example of mutually exclusive choices. The real example would be where an item can relate to multiple items in the selection.

[pfiller]

Thanks for following up @IanMayo. While that sounds like useful functionality, it does not sound like something that belongs in the main Chosen repo. If you fork it and build your own, let me know what you come up with!

[IanMayo]

Hi there @pfiller , I'm a GWT developer, which I'm afraid makes me a consumer of JS libraries rather than a developer. But, if I do chance across someone with the correct skillset I'll happily 'sponsor' a fork.