tom-select

What is tom-select?

Tom-select is a JavaScript library for creating customizable and feature-rich select boxes. It enhances the standard HTML select element with additional functionalities such as search, multi-select, and remote data loading.

What are tom-select's main functionalities?

Single Select

This feature allows you to create a single select dropdown with enhanced UI and search capabilities.

<select id='select-single'>
  <option value='1'>Option 1</option>
  <option value='2'>Option 2</option>
</select>
<script>
  new TomSelect('#select-single');
</script>

Multi Select

This feature enables users to select multiple options from a dropdown list, with the ability to search and filter options.

<select id='select-multi' multiple>
  <option value='1'>Option 1</option>
  <option value='2'>Option 2</option>
</select>
<script>
  new TomSelect('#select-multi');
</script>

Remote Data Loading

This feature allows the select box to load options from a remote data source, making it suitable for large datasets or dynamic data.

<select id='select-remote'></select>
<script>
  new TomSelect('#select-remote', {
    load: function(query, callback) {
      var url = 'https://api.example.com/search?q=' + encodeURIComponent(query);
      fetch(url)
        .then(response => response.json())
        .then(json => {
          callback(json.items);
        }).catch(() => {
          callback();
        });
    }
  });
</script>

Other packages similar to tom-select

select2

Select2 is a jQuery-based replacement for select boxes. It supports searching, remote data sets, and infinite scrolling of results. Compared to Tom-select, Select2 is more mature and widely used, but it requires jQuery as a dependency.

chosen-js

Chosen is a JavaScript plugin that makes long, unwieldy select boxes more user-friendly. It offers similar features like search and multi-select. However, Chosen is less feature-rich compared to Tom-select and has not been actively maintained in recent years.

react-select

React-select is a flexible and beautiful Select Input control for ReactJS with multiselect, autocomplete, async and creatable support. It is specifically designed for React applications, whereas Tom-select is a vanilla JavaScript library.

README

Tom Select

Tom Select is a dynamic, framework agnostic, and lightweight (~16kb gzipped) <select> UI control. With autocomplete and native-feeling keyboard navigation, it's useful for tagging, contact lists, country selectors, and so on. Tom Select was forked from selectize.js with the goal of modernizing the code base, decoupling from jQuery, and expanding functionality.

Features

• Smart Option Searching / Ranking
  Options are efficiently scored and sorted on-the-fly (using sifter). Want to search an item's title and description? No problem.
• Caret between items
  Order matters sometimes. With the Caret Position Plugin, you can use the ← and → arrow keys to move between selected items
• Select & delete multiple items at once
  Hold down command on Mac or ctrl on Windows to select more than one item to delete.
• Díåcritîçs supported
  Great for international environments.
• Item creation
  Allow users to create items on the fly (async saving is supported; the control locks until the callback is fired).
• Remote data loading
  For when you have thousands of options and want them provided by the server as the user types.
• Extensible
  Plugin API for developing custom features (uses microplugin).
• Accessible, Touch Support, Clean API, ...

Usage

<input id="tom-select-it" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/tom-select.default.css">
<script src="/js/tom-select.complete.js"></script>
<script>
var config = {};
new TomSelect('#tom-select-it',config);
</script>

Available configuration settings are documented here

Installation

All pre-built files needed to use Tom Select can be found in the "dist" folder via any of these sources:

Source
jsDelivr	The fastest way to add Tom Select into your project is to just include the js and css from jsDelivr. <link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/tom-select/dist/css/tom-select.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/tom-select/dist/js/tom-select.complete.min.js"></script>
npm	npm i tom-select Additional CLI usage
GitHub	Clone or download the full repo. Use npm run build and other commands to build from source, test and start the doc server.

Files

• tom-select.complete.js — Includes dependencies and plugins
• tom-select.base.js — Does not include any plugins
• CSS — Compiled themes
• SCSS — Uncompiled theme sources

Sponsors

Many thanks to all our sponsors who help make development possible. Become a sponsor.

License

Copyright © 2013–2023 Contributors

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.