react-select

What is react-select?

The react-select npm package is a flexible and customizable select input control for React applications. It provides a powerful set of features that allow developers to create simple dropdowns, multi-selects, async data loading, and more, with a focus on accessibility and customizability.

What are react-select's main functionalities?

Basic Single Select

This feature allows you to create a basic single selection dropdown where a user can select one option from a predefined list.

{"import Select from 'react-select';\n\nconst options = [\n  { value: 'chocolate', label: 'Chocolate' },\n  { value: 'strawberry', label: 'Strawberry' },\n  { value: 'vanilla', label: 'Vanilla' }\n];\n\nconst MyComponent = () => (\n  <Select options={options} />\n);"}

Multi-Select

This feature enables users to select multiple options from the dropdown. It is useful for fields that require more than one selection.

{"import Select from 'react-select';\n\nconst options = [\n  { value: 'chocolate', label: 'Chocolate' },\n  { value: 'strawberry', label: 'Strawberry' },\n  { value: 'vanilla', label: 'Vanilla' }\n];\n\nconst MyComponent = () => (\n  <Select isMulti options={options} />\n);"}

Asynchronous Loading

This feature allows for loading options asynchronously, which is useful when the options are not available at initial render time or need to be fetched based on user input.

{"import Select from 'react-select';\nimport AsyncSelect from 'react-select/async';\n\nconst loadOptions = (inputValue, callback) => {\n  setTimeout(() => {\n    callback(filterOptions(inputValue));\n  }, 1000);\n};\n\nconst MyComponent = () => (\n  <AsyncSelect loadOptions={loadOptions} />\n);"}

Creatable Select

This feature allows users to create a new option on the fly if the option they are looking for is not available in the list.

{"import CreatableSelect from 'react-select/creatable';\n\nconst options = [\n  { value: 'chocolate', label: 'Chocolate' },\n  { value: 'strawberry', label: 'Strawberry' },\n  { value: 'vanilla', label: 'Vanilla' }\n];\n\nconst MyComponent = () => (\n  <CreatableSelect isMulti options={options} />\n);"}

Other packages similar to react-select

downshift

Downshift is a set of primitives to build simple, flexible, WAI-ARIA compliant enhanced input React components. Its major focus is on flexibility and providing the building blocks for creating custom dropdown components. It is more low-level than react-select and requires more boilerplate to achieve similar functionality.

react-autosuggest

React-autosuggest is a WAI-ARIA compliant React autosuggest component that provides a simple yet customizable input field with suggestions. While it is similar to react-select in providing suggestions, it does not offer as many features out of the box, such as multi-select or async options.

antd

Ant Design (antd) is a design system with a set of high-quality React components, one of which is a Select component. It offers a comprehensive suite of features similar to react-select but is part of a larger framework, which might be more than needed if only a select component is required.

README

React-Select

The Select control for React. Initially built for use in KeystoneJS.

See react-select.com for live demos and comprehensive docs.

React Select is funded by Thinkmill and Atlassian. It represents a whole new approach to developing powerful React.js components that just work out of the box, while being extremely customisable.

For the story behind this component, watch Jed's talk at React Conf 2019 - building React Select

Features include:

• Flexible approach to data, with customisable functions
• Extensible styling API with emotion
• Component Injection API for complete control over the UI behaviour
• Controllable state props and modular architecture
• Long-requested features like option groups, portal support, animation, and more

Using an older version?

• v3, v4, and v5 upgrade guide
• v2 upgrade guide
• React Select v1 documentation and examples are available at v1.react-select.com

Installation and usage

The easiest way to use react-select is to install it from npm and build it into your app with Webpack.

yarn add react-select

Then use it in your app:

With React Component

import React from 'react';
import Select from 'react-select';

const options = [
  { value: 'chocolate', label: 'Chocolate' },
  { value: 'strawberry', label: 'Strawberry' },
  { value: 'vanilla', label: 'Vanilla' },
];

class App extends React.Component {
  state = {
    selectedOption: null,
  };
  handleChange = (selectedOption) => {
    this.setState({ selectedOption }, () =>
      console.log(`Option selected:`, this.state.selectedOption)
    );
  };
  render() {
    const { selectedOption } = this.state;

    return (
      <Select
        value={selectedOption}
        onChange={this.handleChange}
        options={options}
      />
    );
  }
}

With React Hooks

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import Select from 'react-select';

const options = [
  { value: 'chocolate', label: 'Chocolate' },
  { value: 'strawberry', label: 'Strawberry' },
  { value: 'vanilla', label: 'Vanilla' },
];

export default function App() {
  const [selectedOption, setSelectedOption] = useState(null);

  return (
    <div className="App">
      <Select
        defaultValue={selectedOption}
        onChange={setSelectedOption}
        options={options}
      />
    </div>
  );
}

Props

Common props you may want to specify include:

• autoFocus - focus the control when it mounts
• className - apply a className to the control
• classNamePrefix - apply classNames to inner elements with the given prefix
• isDisabled - disable the control
• isMulti - allow the user to select multiple values
• isSearchable - allow the user to search for matching options
• name - generate an HTML input with this name, containing the current value
• onChange - subscribe to change events
• options - specify the options the user can select from
• placeholder - change the text displayed when no option is selected
• noOptionsMessage - ({ inputValue: string }) => string | null - Text to display when there are no options
• value - control the current value

See the props documentation for complete documentation on the props react-select supports.

Controllable Props

You can control the following props by providing values for them. If you don't, react-select will manage them for you.

• value / onChange - specify the current value of the control
• menuIsOpen / onMenuOpen / onMenuClose - control whether the menu is open
• inputValue / onInputChange - control the value of the search input (changing this will update the available options)

If you don't provide these props, you can set the initial value of the state they control:

• defaultValue - set the initial value of the control
• defaultMenuIsOpen - set the initial open value of the menu
• defaultInputValue - set the initial value of the search input

Methods

React-select exposes two public methods:

• focus() - focus the control programmatically
• blur() - blur the control programmatically

Customisation

Check the docs for more information on:

• Customising the styles
• Using custom components
• Using the built-in animated components
• Creating an async select
• Allowing users to create new options
• Advanced use-cases
• TypeScript guide

Typescript

The v5 release represents a rewrite from JavaScript to Typescript. The types for v4 and earlier releases are available at @types. See the TypeScript guide for how to use the types starting with v5.

Thanks

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this project. It's been a wild ride.

If you like React Select, you should follow me on twitter!

Shout out to Joss Mackison, Charles Lee, Ben Conolly, Tom Walker, Nathan Bierema, Eric Bonow, Mitchell Hamilton, Dave Brotherstone, Brian Vaughn, and the Atlassian Design System team who along with many other contributors have made this possible ❤️

License

MIT Licensed. Copyright (c) Jed Watson 2021.