select2

What is select2?

Select2 is a jQuery-based replacement for select boxes. It supports searching, remote data sets, and infinite scrolling of results.

What are select2's main functionalities?

Basic Usage

This feature allows you to transform a standard HTML select element into a Select2 element with basic functionality.

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('.js-example-basic-single').select2();
});

Multiple Select

This feature allows you to create a multiple select dropdown where users can select more than one option.

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('.js-example-basic-multiple').select2();
});

Loading Remote Data

This feature allows you to load data from a remote source via AJAX, making it useful for large datasets.

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('.js-data-example-ajax').select2({
    ajax: {
      url: 'https://api.example.com/data',
      dataType: 'json',
      processResults: function (data) {
        return {
          results: data.items
        };
      }
    }
  });
});

Tagging Support

This feature allows users to add new options to the select box by typing them in, useful for tagging systems.

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('.js-example-tags').select2({
    tags: true
  });
});

Other packages similar to select2

chosen-js

Chosen is another jQuery plugin that makes long, unwieldy select boxes much more user-friendly. It offers similar features to Select2, such as search and multiple select, but lacks some of the advanced features like remote data loading.

selectize

Selectize is a hybrid of a textbox and a select box. It offers a rich set of features including search, remote data loading, and tagging. It is more flexible than Select2 but can be more complex to configure.

react-select

React-Select is a flexible and beautiful Select Input control for ReactJS with multiselect, autocomplete, and AJAX support. It is specifically designed for React applications, making it a better choice for React developers compared to Select2.

README

Select2

Select2 is a jQuery-based replacement for select boxes. It supports searching, remote data sets, and pagination of results.

To get started, checkout examples and documentation at https://select2.org/

Use cases

• Enhancing native selects with search.
• Enhancing native selects with a better multi-select interface.
• Loading data from JavaScript: easily load items via AJAX and have them searchable.
• Nesting optgroups: native selects only support one level of nesting. Select2 does not have this restriction.
• Tagging: ability to add new items on the fly.
• Working with large, remote datasets: ability to partially load a dataset based on the search term.
• Paging of large datasets: easy support for loading more pages when the results are scrolled to the end.
• Templating: support for custom rendering of results and selections.

Browser compatibility

• IE 8+
• Chrome 8+
• Firefox 10+
• Safari 3+
• Opera 10.6+

Usage

You can source Select2 directly from a CDN like JSDliver or CDNJS, download it from this GitHub repo, or use one of the integrations below.

Integrations

Third party developers have created plugins for platforms which allow Select2 to be integrated more natively and quickly. For many platforms, additional plugins are not required because Select2 acts as a standard <select> box.

Plugins

• Django
  • django-autocomplete-light
  • django-easy-select2
  • django-select2
• Drupal - drupal-select2
• Meteor - meteor-select2
• Ruby on Rails - select2-rails
• Wicket - wicketstuff-select2
• Yii 2 - yii2-widget-select2
• Angularjs - mdr-angular-select2

Themes

• Bootstrap 3 - select2-bootstrap-theme
• Bootstrap 4 - select2-bootstrap4-theme
• Flat UI - select2-flat-theme
• Metro UI - select2-metro

Missing an integration? Modify this README and make a pull request back here to Select2 on GitHub.

Internationalization (i18n)

Select2 supports multiple languages by simply including the right language JS file (dist/js/i18n/it.js, dist/js/i18n/nl.js, etc.) after dist/js/select2.js.

Missing a language? Just copy src/js/select2/i18n/en.js, translate it, and make a pull request back to Select2 here on GitHub.

Documentation

The documentation for Select2 is available through GitHub Pages and is located within the separate select2/docs repository.

Community

You can find out about the different ways to get in touch with the Select2 community at the Select2 community page.

Copyright and license

The license is available within the repository in the LICENSE file.

Changelog

4.0.10

New features / improvements

• Support passing in a selector for dropdownParent option (#5622)

Bug fixes

• Fix bug where dropdowns pointing upwards were incorrectly positioned (#5621)