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

A Select control built with and for React. Initially built for use in KeystoneJS.

---

v2.0.0 Beta

A major update to React-select is coming! v2 is all new with some major API improvements, a powerful new styles and components API, and support for some long-requested features like option groups.

To install the new version:

yarn add react-select@next

Check out the v2 documentation and upgrade guide.

---

Demo & Examples

Live demo: jedwatson.github.io/react-select

Installation

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

You can then import react-select and its styles in your application as follows:

import Select from 'react-select';
import 'react-select/dist/react-select.css';

You can also use the standalone UMD build by including dist/react-select.js and dist/react-select.css in your page. If you do this you'll also need to include the dependencies. For example:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/react@15.6.1/dist/react.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@15.6.1/dist/react-dom.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/prop-types@15.5.10/prop-types.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/classnames@2.2.5/index.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-input-autosize@2.0.0/dist/react-input-autosize.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-select@1.2.1/dist/react-select.js"></script>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/react-select@1.2.1/dist/react-select.css">

Usage

React-Select generates a hidden text field containing the selected value, so you can submit it as part of a standard form. You can also listen for changes with the onChange event property.

Options should be provided as an Array of Objects, each with a value and label property for rendering and searching. You can use a disabled property to indicate whether the option is disabled or not.

The value property of each option should be either a string or a number.

When the value is changed, onChange(selectedValueOrValues) will fire. Note that (as of 1.0) you must handle the change and pass the updated value to the Select.

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

class App extends React.Component {
  state = {
    selectedOption: '',
  }
  handleChange = (selectedOption) => {
    this.setState({ selectedOption });
    // selectedOption can be null when the `x` (close) button is clicked
    if (selectedOption) {
      console.log(`Selected: ${selectedOption.label}`);
    }
  }
  render() {
    const { selectedOption } = this.state;

    return (
      <Select
        name="form-field-name"
        value={selectedOption}
        onChange={this.handleChange}
        options={[
          { value: 'one', label: 'One' },
          { value: 'two', label: 'Two' },
        ]}
      />
    );
  }
}

You can customise the valueKey and labelKey props to use a different option shape.

Custom classNames

You can provide a custom className prop to the <Select> component, which will be added to the base .Select className for the outer container.

The built-in Options renderer also support custom classNames, just add a className property to objects in the options array.

Multiselect options

You can enable multi-value selection by setting multi={true}. In this mode:

• Selected options will be removed from the dropdown menu by default. If you want them to remain in the list, set removeSelected={false}
• The selected values are submitted in multiple <input type="hidden"> fields, use the joinValues prop to submit joined values in a single field instead
• The values of the selected items are joined using the delimiter prop to create the input value when joinValues is true
• A simple value, if provided, will be split using the delimiter prop
• The onChange event provides an array of selected options or a comma-separated string of values (eg "1,2,3") if simpleValue is true
• By default, only options in the options array can be selected. Use the Creatable Component (which wraps Select) to allow new options to be created if they do not already exist. Hitting comma (','), ENTER or TAB will add a new option. Versions 0.9.x and below provided a boolean attribute on the Select Component (allowCreate) to achieve the same functionality. It is no longer available starting with version 1.0.0.
• By default, selected options can be cleared. To disable the possibility of clearing a particular option, add clearableValue: false to that option:

var options = [
  { value: 'one', label: 'One' },
  { value: 'two', label: 'Two', clearableValue: false }
];

Note: the clearable prop of the Select component should also be set to false to prevent allowing clearing all fields at once

Accessibility Note

Selected values aren't focus targets, which means keyboard users can't tab to them, and are restricted to removing them using backspace in order. This isn't ideal and I'm looking at other options for the future; in the meantime if you want to use a custom valueComponent that implements tabIndex and keyboard event handling, see #2098 for an example.

Async options

If you want to load options asynchronously, use the Async export and provide a loadOptions Function.

The function takes two arguments String input, Function callbackand will be called when the input text is changed.

When your async process finishes getting the options, pass them to callback(err, data) in a Object { options: [] }.

The select control will intelligently cache options for input strings that have already been fetched. The cached result set will be filtered as more specific searches are input, so if your async process would only return a smaller set of results for a more specific query, also pass complete: true in the callback object. Caching can be disabled by setting cache to false (Note that complete: true will then have no effect).

Unless you specify the property autoload={false} the control will automatically load the default set of options (i.e. for input: '') when it is mounted.

import { Async } from 'react-select';

const getOptions = (input, callback) => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    callback(null, {
      options: [
        { value: 'one', label: 'One' },
        { value: 'two', label: 'Two' }
      ],
      // CAREFUL! Only set this to true when there are no more options,
      // or more specific queries will not be sent to the server.
      complete: true
    });
  }, 500);
};

<Async
  name="form-field-name"
  loadOptions={getOptions}
/>

Note about filtering async options

The Async component doesn't change the default behaviour for filtering the options based on user input, but if you're already filtering the options server-side you may want to customise or disable this feature (see filtering options below). For example, if you would like to completely disable client side filtering, you can do so with:

filterOptions={(options, filter, currentValues) => {
  // Do no filtering, just return all options
  return options;
}}

Async options with Promises

loadOptions supports Promises, which can be used in very much the same way as callbacks.

Everything that applies to loadOptions with callbacks still applies to the Promises approach (e.g. caching, autoload, ...)

An example using the fetch API and ES6 syntax, with an API that returns an object like:

import { Async } from 'react-select';

/*
 * assuming the API returns something like this:
 *   const json = [
 *      { value: 'one', label: 'One' },
 *      { value: 'two', label: 'Two' }
 *   ]
 */

const getOptions = (input) => {
  return fetch(`/users/${input}.json`)
    .then((response) => {
      return response.json();
    }).then((json) => {
      return { options: json };
    });
}

<Async
  name="form-field-name"
  value="one"
  loadOptions={getOptions}
/>

Async options loaded externally

If you want to load options asynchronously externally from the Select component, you can have the Select component show a loading spinner by passing in the isLoading prop set to true.

import Select from 'react-select';

let isLoadingExternally = true;

<Select
  name="form-field-name"
  isLoading={isLoadingExternally}
  ...
/>

User-created tags

The Creatable component enables users to create new tags within react-select. It decorates a Select and so it supports all of the default properties (eg single/multi mode, filtering, etc) in addition to a couple of custom ones (shown below). The easiest way to use it is like so:

import { Creatable } from 'react-select';

function render (selectProps) {
  return <Creatable {...selectProps} />;
};

Combining Async and Creatable

Use the AsyncCreatable HOC if you want both async and creatable functionality. It ties Async and Creatable components together and supports a union of their properties (listed above). Use it as follows:

import { AsyncCreatable } from 'react-select';

function render (props) {
  // props can be a mix of Async, Creatable, and Select properties
  return (
    <AsyncCreatable {...props} />
  );
}

Filtering options

You can control how options are filtered with the following props:

• matchPos: "start" or "any": whether to match the text entered at the start or any position in the option value
• matchProp: "label", "value" or "any": whether to match the value, label or both values of each option when filtering
• ignoreCase: Boolean: whether to ignore case or match the text exactly when filtering
• ignoreAccents: Boolean: whether to ignore accents on characters like ø or å

matchProp and matchPos both default to "any". ignoreCase defaults to true. ignoreAccents defaults to true.

Advanced filters

You can also completely replace the method used to filter either a single option, or the entire options array (allowing custom sort mechanisms, etc.)

• filterOption: function(Object option, String filter) returns Boolean. Will override matchPos, matchProp, ignoreCase and ignoreAccents options.
• filterOptions: function(Array options, String filter, Array currentValues) returns Array filteredOptions. Will override filterOption, matchPos, matchProp, ignoreCase and ignoreAccents options.

For multi-select inputs, when providing a custom filterOptions method, remember to exclude current values from the returned array of options.

Filtering large lists

The default filterOptions method scans the options array for matches each time the filter text changes. This works well but can get slow as the options array grows to several hundred objects. For larger options lists a custom filter function like react-select-fast-filter-options will produce better results.

Efficiently rendering large lists with windowing

The menuRenderer property can be used to override the default drop-down list of options. This should be done when the list is large (hundreds or thousands of items) for faster rendering. Windowing libraries like react-virtualized can then be used to more efficiently render the drop-down menu like so. The easiest way to do this is with the react-virtualized-select HOC. This component decorates a Select and uses the react-virtualized VirtualScroll component to render options. Demo and documentation for this component are available here.

You can also specify your own custom renderer. The custom menuRenderer property accepts the following named parameters:

Parameter	Type	Description
focusedOption	Object	The currently focused option; should be visible in the menu by default.
focusOption	Function	Callback to focus a new option; receives the option as a parameter.
labelKey	String	Option labels are accessible with this string key.
optionClassName	String	The className that gets used for options
optionComponent	ReactClass	The react component that gets used for rendering an option
optionRenderer	Function	The function that gets used to render the content of an option
options	Array<Object>	Ordered array of options to render.
selectValue	Function	Callback to select a new option; receives the option as a parameter.
valueArray	Array<Object>	Array of currently selected options.

Updating input values with onInputChange

You can manipulate the input by providing a onInputChange callback that returns a new value. Please note: When you want to use onInputChange only to listen to the input updates, you still have to return the unchanged value!

function cleanInput(inputValue) {
  // Strip all non-number characters from the input
  return inputValue.replace(/[^0-9]/g, "");
}

<Select
  name="form-field-name"
  onInputChange={cleanInput}
/>

Overriding default key-down behaviour with onInputKeyDown

Select listens to keyDown events to select items, navigate drop-down list via arrow keys, etc. You can extend or override this behaviour by providing a onInputKeyDown callback.

function onInputKeyDown(event) {
  switch (event.keyCode) {
    case 9: // TAB
      // Extend default TAB behaviour by doing something here
      break;
    case 13: // ENTER
      // Override default ENTER behaviour by doing stuff here and then preventing default
      event.preventDefault();
      break;
  }
}

<Select
  {...otherProps}
  onInputKeyDown={onInputKeyDown}
/>

Select Props

Property	Type	Default	Description
aria-describedby	string	undefined	HTML ID(s) of element(s) that should be used to describe this input (for assistive tech)
aria-label	string	undefined	Aria label (for assistive tech)
aria-labelledby	string	undefined	HTML ID of an element that should be used as the label (for assistive tech)
arrowRenderer	function	undefined	Renders a custom drop-down arrow to be shown in the right-hand side of the select: arrowRenderer({ onMouseDown, isOpen }). Won't render when set to null
autoBlur	boolean	false	Blurs the input element after a selection has been made. Handy for lowering the keyboard on mobile devices
autofocus	boolean	undefined	deprecated; use the autoFocus prop instead
autoFocus	boolean	undefined	autofocus the component on mount
autoload	boolean	true	whether to auto-load the default async options set
autosize	boolean	true	If enabled, the input will expand as the length of its value increases
backspaceRemoves	boolean	true	whether pressing backspace removes the last item when there is no input value (Also see related prop deleteRemoves)
backspaceToRemoveMessage	string	'Press backspace to remove {last label}'	prompt shown in input when at least one option in a multiselect is shown, set to '' to clear
className	string	undefined	className for the outer element
clearable	boolean	true	should it be possible to reset value
clearAllText	string	'Clear all'	title for the "clear" control when multi is true
clearRenderer	function	undefined	Renders a custom clear to be shown in the right-hand side of the select when clearable true: clearRenderer()
clearValueText	string	'Clear value'	title for the "clear" control
closeOnSelect	boolean	true	whether to close the menu when a value is selected
deleteRemoves	boolean	true	whether pressing delete key removes the last item when there is no input value. (Also see related prop backspaceRemoves)
delimiter	string	','	delimiter to use to join multiple values
disabled	boolean	false	whether the Select is disabled or not
escapeClearsValue	boolean	true	whether escape clears the value when the menu is closed
filterOption	function	undefined	method to filter a single option (option, filterString) => boolean
filterOptions	boolean or function	undefined	boolean to enable default filtering or function to filter the options array ([options], filterString, [values]) => [options]
id	string	undefined	html id to set on the input element for accessibility or tests
ignoreAccents	boolean	true	whether to strip accents when filtering
ignoreCase	boolean	true	whether to perform case-insensitive filtering
inputProps	object	undefined	custom attributes for the Input (in the Select-control) e.g: {'data-foo': 'bar'}
inputRenderer	function	undefined	renders a custom input component
instanceId	string	increment	instance ID used internally to set html ids on elements for accessibility, specify for universal rendering
isLoading	boolean	false	whether the Select is loading externally or not (such as options being loaded)
joinValues	boolean	false	join multiple values into a single hidden input using the delimiter
labelKey	string	'label'	the option property to use for the label
matchPos	string	'any'	(any, start) match the start or entire string when filtering
matchProp	string	'any'	(any, label, value) which option property to filter on
menuBuffer	number	0	buffer of px between the base of the dropdown and the viewport to shift if menu doesnt fit in viewport
menuContainerStyle	object	undefined	optional style to apply to the menu container
menuRenderer	function	undefined	Renders a custom menu with options; accepts the following named parameters: menuRenderer({ focusedOption, focusOption, options, selectValue, valueArray })
menuStyle	object	undefined	optional style to apply to the menu
multi	boolean	undefined	multi-value input
name	string	undefined	field name, for hidden <input /> tag
noResultsText	string	'No results found'	placeholder displayed when there are no matching search results or a falsy value to hide it (can also be a react component)
onBlur	function	undefined	onBlur handler: function(event) {}
onBlurResetsInput	boolean	true	Whether to clear input on blur or not. If set to false, it only works if onCloseResetsInput is false as well.
onChange	function	undefined	onChange handler: function(newOption) {}
onClose	function	undefined	handler for when the menu closes: function () {}
onCloseResetsInput	boolean	true	whether to clear input when closing the menu through the arrow
onFocus	function	undefined	onFocus handler: function(event) {}
onInputChange	function	undefined	onInputChange handler/interceptor: function(inputValue: string): string
onInputKeyDown	function	undefined	input keyDown handler; call event.preventDefault() to override default Select behaviour: function(event) {}
onMenuScrollToBottom	function	undefined	called when the menu is scrolled to the bottom
onOpen	function	undefined	handler for when the menu opens: function () {}
onSelectResetsInput	boolean	true	whether the input value should be reset when options are selected. Also input value will be set to empty if 'onSelectResetsInput=true' and Select will get new value that not equal previous value.
onValueClick	function	undefined	onClick handler for value labels: function (value, event) {}
openOnClick	boolean	true	open the options menu when the control is clicked (requires searchable = true)
openOnFocus	boolean	false	open the options menu when the control gets focus
optionClassName	string	undefined	additional class(es) to apply to the elements
optionComponent	function	undefined	option component to render in dropdown
optionRenderer	function	undefined	custom function to render the options in the menu
options	array	undefined	array of options
removeSelected	boolean	true	whether the selected option is removed from the dropdown on multi selects
pageSize	number	5	number of options to jump when using page up/down keys
placeholder	string or node	'Select ...'	field placeholder, displayed when there's no value
required	boolean	false	applies HTML5 required attribute when needed
resetValue	any	null	value to set when the control is cleared
rtl	boolean	false	use react-select in right-to-left direction
scrollMenuIntoView	boolean	true	whether the viewport will shift to display the entire menu when engaged
searchable	boolean	true	whether to enable searching feature or not
searchPromptText	string or node	'Type to search'	label to prompt for search input
simpleValue	boolean	false	pass the value to onChange as a string
style	object	undefined	optional styles to apply to the control
tabIndex	string or number	undefined	tabIndex of the control
tabSelectsValue	boolean	true	whether to select the currently focused value when the [tab] key is pressed
trimFilter	boolean	true	whether to trim whitespace from the filter value
value	any	undefined	initial field value
valueComponent	function		function which returns a custom way to render/manage the value selected <CustomValue />
valueKey	string	'value'	the option property to use for the value
valueRenderer	function	undefined	function which returns a custom way to render the value selected function (option) {}
wrapperStyle	object	undefined	optional styles to apply to the component wrapper

Async Props

Property	Type	Default	Description
autoload	boolean	true	automatically call the loadOptions prop on-mount
cache	object	undefined	Sets the cache object used for options. Set to false if you would like to disable caching.
loadingPlaceholder	string or node	'Loading...'	label to prompt for loading search result
loadOptions	function	undefined	function that returns a promise or calls a callback with the options: function(input, [callback])

Creatable properties

Property	Type	Description
children	function	Child function responsible for creating the inner Select component. This component can be used to compose HOCs (eg Creatable and Async). Expected signature: (props: Object): PropTypes.element
isOptionUnique	function	Searches for any matching option within the set of options. This function prevents duplicate options from being created. By default this is a basic, case-sensitive comparison of label and value. Expected signature: ({ option: Object, options: Array, labelKey: string, valueKey: string }): boolean
isValidNewOption	function	Determines if the current input text represents a valid option. By default any non-empty string will be considered valid. Expected signature: ({ label: string }): boolean
newOptionCreator	function	Factory to create new option. Expected signature: ({ label: string, labelKey: string, valueKey: string }): Object
onNewOptionClick	function	new option click handler, it calls when new option has been selected. function(option) {}
shouldKeyDownEventCreateNewOption	function	Decides if a keyDown event (eg its keyCode) should result in the creation of a new option. ENTER, TAB and comma keys create new options by default. Expected signature: ({ keyCode: number }): boolean
promptTextCreator	function	Factory for overriding default option creator prompt label. By default it will read 'Create option "{label}"'. Expected signature: (label: String): String
showNewOptionAtTop	boolean	true: (Default) Show new option at top of list false: Show new option at bottom of list

Methods

Use the focus() method to give the control focus. All other methods on <Select> elements should be considered private.

// focuses the input element
<instance>.focus();

Contributing

See our CONTRIBUTING.md for information on how to contribute.

Thanks to the projects this was inspired by: Selectize (in terms of behaviour and user experience), React-Autocomplete (as a quality React Combobox implementation), as well as other select controls including Chosen and Select2.

License

MIT Licensed. Copyright (c) Jed Watson 2018.