This project is very early stage. There are lots of interactions to fine tune (keyboard and mouse inputs for example) and styling to do. Feel free to help out and suggestions are welcome!
Native multiselects are quite difficult to use and offer poor usability. React Polyselect is an attempt create something user friendly and simply to use for developers. It combines a native style select and checkboxes which makes it feel very familiar. Take a look.
If you're using npm you can run npm install react-polyselect. If you're in a non-node project check out the Installing for Rails section, that should point you in the right direction (even for other backend frameworks).
After installing (with npm) you need to pull the styles in or build your own. There's an overview of this for webpack, the same pattern applies for any other build tool. Another option for including styles is to simply copy and paste. If you plan on modifying the styles this is probably a good idea.
After requiring react-polyselect you need to require the sass stylesheet directly from the node_modules directory like so. Make sure your path is relative. What this will do is insert those styles directly into the head.
var React = require('react'),
ReactPolyselect = require('react-polyselect'),
Polyselect = ReactPolyselect.Polyselect,
Polyoption = ReactPolyselect.Polyoption;
require("!style!css!sass!./node_modules/react-polyselect/src/polyselect.scss");
You now need to configure webpack to load and process the sass file. Here's my typical setup.
loaders: [
{ test: /\.scss$/, loader: "style-loader!sass-loader" }
]
If you are using less I'm sorry! But fear not I plan on including a less stylesheet soon (better yet set it up yourself and submit a PR).
The Polyselect's markup matches the native select spec (other than the multiselect attribute) as does the Polyoption. Here's an example of how to create a polyselect with three options, each with a title and value.
<Polyselect name="example">
<Polyoption name="opt-1" title="My select option" value="1" />
<Polyoption name="opt-2" title="My second select option" value="2" />
<Polyoption name="opt-3" title="My third select option" value="3" />
</Polyselect>
If you are using React you can access the selected values via the polyselect ref this.ref.polyselect. This is set to polyselect by default but ff you plan on using multiple polyselects make sure to set a unique nativeRef prop for each polyselect.
If you are using this component as part of a regular HTML form you need to set the name prop on the polyselect so it submits as in a format your backend expects. If this were in a Rails form where we are creating a new Library model which has many Books the name prop would look like this.
<Polyoption name="library[books]">
...
</Polyselect>
All that we are doing is matching what a regular Rails select helper would output.
Unfortunately in Rails npm and module loading systems are not a natural part of the Rails eco-system. You have two options for installing replace the asset pipeline with webpack (or get it working along side it) or use the copy and paste method. The copy and paste method is a highly involved process but I will do my best to guide you through it!
Firstly, copy the polyselect.js, polyoption.js and polyselect.scss files from the src directory of this project. Put the js files inside your components folder of your Rails application (or wherever you store React components). Next put the scss file wherever you please. Finally remove any requires or module.exports from the js files. You should now be able to use the React Polyselect.
If you are struggling feel free to make an issue and I'll do my best to help you. Or if you'd rather be less public (possibly to abuse me) fire an email off to jarsbe@gmail.com. Have a nice day.