Chosen is a jQuery plugin that makes long, unwieldy select boxes much more user-friendly.
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Standard Select
Turns This
Into This
Multiple Select
Turns This
Into This
<optgroup> Support
Single Select with Groups
Multiple Select with Groups
Selected and Disabled Support
Chosen automatically highlights selected options and removes disabled options.
Single Select
Multiple Select
Hide Search on Single Select
The disable_search_threshold option can be specified to hide the search input on single selects if there are fewer than (n) options.
$(".chzn-select").chosen({disable_search_threshold: 10});
Default Text Support
Chosen automatically sets the default field text ("Choose a country...") by reading the select element's data-placeholder value. If no data-placeholder value is present, it will default to "Select an Option" or "Select Some Options" depending on whether the select is single or multiple. You can change these elements in the plugin js file as you see fit.
<select data-placeholder="Choose a country..." style="width:350px;" multiple class="chzn-select">
Note: on single selects, the first element is assumed to be selected by the browser. To take advantage of the default text support, you will need to include a blank option as the first element of your select list.
No Results Text Support
Setting the "No results" search text is as easy as passing an option when you create Chosen:
$(".chzn-select").chosen({no_results_text: "Oops, nothing found!"});
Single Select
Multiple Select
Limit Selected Options in Multiselect
You can easily limit how many options can user select:
$(".chzn-select").chosen({max_selected_options: 5});
If you try to select another option with limit reached liszt:maxselected event is triggered:
$(".chzn-select").bind("liszt:maxselected", function () { ... });
Allow Deselect on Single Selects
When a single select box isn't a required field, you can set allow_single_deselect: true and Chosen will add a UI element for option deselection. This will only work if the first option has blank text.
Right to Left Support
Chosen supports right to left select boxes too. just add "chzn-rtl" in addition to "chzn-select" to your select tags and you are good to go.
<select class="chzn-select chzn-rtl">
Single right to left select
Multiple right to left select
Change / Update Events
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Form Field Change
When working with form fields, you often want to perform some behavior after a value has been selected or deselected. Whenever a user selects a field in Chosen, it triggers a "change" event* on the original form field. That let's you do something like this:
$("#form_field").chosen().change( … );
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Updating Chosen Dynamically
If you need to update the options in your select field and want Chosen to pick up the changes, you'll need to trigger the "liszt:updated" event on the field. Chosen will re-build itself based on the updated content.
$("#form_field").trigger("liszt:updated");
Custom Width Support
Using a custom width with Chosen is as easy as passing an option when you create Chosen:
$(".chzn-select").chosen({width: "95%"});
Single Select
Multiple Select
Labels work, too
Use labels just like you would a standard select
Setup
Using Chosen is easy as can be.
- Download the plugin and copy the chosen files to your app.
- Activate the plugin on the select boxes of your choice:
$(".chzn-select").chosen()
- Disco.
FAQs
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Something doesn't work. Can you fix it?
Yes! Please report all issues using the GitHub issue tracking tool. Please include the plugin version (jQuery or Prototype), browser and OS. The more information provided, the easier it is to fix a problem.
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What browsers are supported?
All modern browsers are supported (Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE9). Legacy support for IE8 is also enabled.
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Didn't there used to be a Prototype version of Chosen?
There still is!
Credits