react-bootstrap-typeahead

What is react-bootstrap-typeahead?

The react-bootstrap-typeahead package is a flexible, robust, and highly customizable typeahead (autocomplete) component for React. It is built using Bootstrap styles and provides a variety of features to enhance user experience in form inputs.

What are react-bootstrap-typeahead's main functionalities?

Basic Typeahead

This feature allows you to create a basic typeahead input where users can type and get suggestions from a predefined list of options.

import React from 'react';
import { Typeahead } from 'react-bootstrap-typeahead';

const options = ['John', 'Paul', 'George', 'Ringo'];

function BasicTypeahead() {
  return (
    <Typeahead
      id="basic-typeahead"
      labelKey="name"
      options={options}
      placeholder="Choose a name..."
    />
  );
}

export default BasicTypeahead;

Multiple Selections

This feature allows users to select multiple options from the typeahead suggestions, making it useful for forms that require multiple inputs.

import React from 'react';
import { Typeahead } from 'react-bootstrap-typeahead';

const options = ['John', 'Paul', 'George', 'Ringo'];

function MultiSelectTypeahead() {
  return (
    <Typeahead
      id="multi-select-typeahead"
      labelKey="name"
      multiple
      options={options}
      placeholder="Choose several names..."
    />
  );
}

export default MultiSelectTypeahead;

Custom Rendering

This feature allows you to customize the rendering of the typeahead options, providing more control over the appearance and behavior of the suggestions.

import React from 'react';
import { Typeahead } from 'react-bootstrap-typeahead';

const options = [
  { id: 1, name: 'John' },
  { id: 2, name: 'Paul' },
  { id: 3, name: 'George' },
  { id: 4, name: 'Ringo' }
];

function CustomRenderTypeahead() {
  return (
    <Typeahead
      id="custom-render-typeahead"
      labelKey="name"
      options={options}
      placeholder="Choose a Beatle..."
      renderMenuItemChildren={(option, props) => (
        <div>
          <span>{option.name}</span>
        </div>
      )}
    />
  );
}

export default CustomRenderTypeahead;

Other packages similar to react-bootstrap-typeahead

react-autosuggest

react-autosuggest is a popular package for building autocomplete and autosuggest components in React. It offers a high degree of customization and flexibility, similar to react-bootstrap-typeahead, but does not rely on Bootstrap for styling.

downshift

downshift is a highly customizable library for building autocomplete, dropdown, and select components in React. It provides a set of primitives to build complex components, offering more flexibility but requiring more setup compared to react-bootstrap-typeahead.

react-select

react-select is a flexible and beautiful Select Input control for React with support for multi-select, async options, and more. It is highly customizable and provides a rich set of features, making it a strong alternative to react-bootstrap-typeahead.

README

React Bootstrap Typeahead

React-based typeahead component that uses Bootstrap as a base for styles and behaviors and supports both single- and multi-selection. The UI and behaviors are inspired by Twitter's typeahead.js. Try a live example.

Please note that this library is under active development and the APIs may change.

Installation

Use NPM to install the module in your project and build using a tool like webpack or browserify.

npm install react-bootstrap-typeahead

To generate UMD modules, both minified and unminified, download the project and run npm run build.

Usage

react-bootstrap-typeahead works very much like any standard input element. It requires an array of options to display, similar to a select.

var Typeahead = require('react-bootstrap-typeahead');

<Typeahead
  onChange={this._handleChange}
  options={myData}
/>

Single & Multi-Selection

react-bootstrap-typeahead allows single-selection by default, but also supports multi-selection. Simply set the multiple prop and the component turns into a tokenizer:

<Typeahead
  multiple
  onChange={this._handleChange}
  options={myData}
/>

Controlled vs. Uncontrolled

Like an input, the component can be controlled or uncontrolled. Use the selected prop to control it via the parent, or defaultSelected to optionally set defaults and then allow the component to control itself.

<Typeahead
  onChange={this._handleChange}
  options={myData}
  selected={selected}
/>

Data

react-bootstrap-typeahead has some expectations about the shape of your data. It expects an array of objects, each of which should have a string property to be used as the label for display. By default, the key is named label, but you can specify a different key via the labelKey prop.

var myData = [
  {id: 1, name: 'John'},
  {id: 2, name: 'Miles'},
  {id: 3, name: 'Charles'},
  {id: 4, name: 'Herbie'},
];

<Typeahead
  labelKey="name"
  onChange={this._handleChange}
  options={myData}
/>

As far as the source of the data, the component simply handles rendering and selection. It is agnostic about the data source (eg: an async endpoint), which should be handled separately.

Rendering

react-bootstrap-typeahead is intended to work with standard Bootstrap components and styles. It provides basic rendering for your data by default, but also allows for more advanced options should the need arise.

renderMenuItemChildren

Allows you to control the contents of a menu item. Your function will be passed the TypeaheadMenu props, an individual option from your data list, and the index:

<Typeahead
  options={options}
  renderMenuItemChildren={(props, option, idx) => {
    /* Render custom contents here */
  }}
/>

Public Methods

To access the component's public methods, add a ref to your typeahead instance:

<Typeahead ref="typeahead" ... />

then access the ref from your handler:

<button onClick={() => this.refs.typeahead.getInstance().clear()}>
  Clear Typeahead
</button>

Note that you must use getInstance to get the typeahead instance. This is because react-bootstrap-typeahead is wrapped by the react-onclickoutside higher-order component, so the clear method is not directly available. See react-onclickoutside's documentation for more information.

blur()

Provides a programmatic way to blur the input.

clear()

Provides a programmatic way to reset the input. Calling the method will clear both text and selection(s).

focus()

Provides a programmatic way to focus the input.

Props

Name	Type	Default	Description
align	string	'justify'	Specify menu alignment. The default value is justify, which makes the menu as wide as the input and truncates long values. Specifying left or right will align the menu to that side and the width will be determined by the length of menu item values.
allowNew	boolean	false	Allows the creation of new selections on the fly. Note that any new items will be added to the list of selections, but not the list of original options unless handled as such by Typeahead's parent.
defaultSelected	array	[]	Specify any pre-selected options. Use only if you want the component to be uncontrolled.
disabled	boolean		Whether to disable the input. Will also disable selections when multiple={true}.
emptyLabel	string	'No matches found.'	Message to display in the menu if there are no valid results.
labelKey	string	'label'	Specify which option key to use for display. By default, the selector will use the label key.
maxHeight	number	300	Maximum height of the dropdown menu, in px.
minLength	number	0	Number of input characters that must be entered before showing results.
multiple	boolean	false	Whether or not multiple selections are allowed.
newSelectionPrefix	string	'New selection:'	Provides the ability to specify a prefix before the user-entered text to indicate that the selection will be new. No-op unless allowNew={true}.
onBlur	function		Callback fired when the input is blurred. Receives an event.
onChange	function		Callback fired whenever items are added or removed. Receives an array of the selected options.
onInputChange	function		Callback fired when user-input text changes. Receives the text string.
options required	array		Full set of options, including any pre-selected options.
paginateResults	number	100	For large option sets, initially display a subset of results for improved performance. If users scroll to the end, the last item will be a link to display the next set of results. Value represents the number of results to display. 0 will display all results.
paginationText	string	'Display additional results...'	Prompt displayed when large data sets are paginated.
placeholder	string		Placeholder text for the input.
renderMenuItemChildren	function		Provides a hook for customized rendering of menu item contents.
selected	array	[]	The selected option(s) displayed in the input. Use this prop if you want to control the component via its parent.

CSS

The component tries to use as little CSS as possible, relying primarily on Bootstrap or any Bootstrap themes for styling. Some minimal styling is included in Typeahead.css and Token.css and should ideally be included wherever you're using the component.

Example

An example file is included with the NPM module. Simply open example/index.html in a browser. If you're using the repository code, you'll need to run npm run example to build the example index file. You can then open the HTML file as described above. You can also try the live example.

License

MIT