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0 pointsnine_k4y ago0 comments

200 checkboxes make about as much sense as a 200-item dropdown. Neither is manageable. The multi-select dropdown is additionally hard to check for the selections made.

An input box with pill-style auto-completion (see e.g. the tags control on Stackoverflow) would be a reasonable alternative.

Another, larger alternative is the typical two-lists control, with selected items moved from the source list to the target list; this idiom was widely used in Windows since 1990s. It's not mobile-friendly though.

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7 comments · 3 top-level

egeozcan4y ago· 3 in thread

> 200 checkboxes make about as much sense as a 200-item dropdown. Neither is manageable.

Multi-select is okay there, apart from the problems I mentioned above: https://jsfiddle.net/z0Ltxh47/2/ . I can navigate to i19 with a few key strokes. Only if it were then possible to easily select a1...

> An input box with pill-style auto-completion (see e.g. the tags control on Stackoverflow) would be a reasonable alternative

And we are back at implementing our custom controls again.

nine_kOP4y ago

> And we are back at implementing our custom controls again.

Sadly, yes. Not everything was anticipated at the times of Netscape 2.

HTML5 added a number of native controls, like video players and calendars. I wish a better "native" multi-select alternative surfaced, too. OTOH I suppose that browsers are going to blur the line between "native" controls and web components and such.

8n4vidtmkvmk4y ago

I think there's an initiative to improve these... but I can't find it at the moment. Googling anything with "native" just turns up react-native crap.

derefr4y ago

> And we are back at implementing our custom controls again.

Are we? Why wouldn't we just push OS vendors to add "input box with pill-style auto-completion" as a native toolkit widget, and then have browsers expose it? The OS vendors have proven willing to add stuff like native OS date/time/number-picker widgets, so why not this one?

dillondoyle4y ago· 1 in thread

I like the pattern of drop downs where you can type to filter. But I've found there isn't great UI in that it's not super obvious you can type.

bil74y ago

I was actually implementing exactly this today in Angular and went with a <mat-autocomplete>

https://v5.material.angular.io/components/autocomplete/overv...

jcelerier4y ago

An input box like SO's isn't discoverable though, it's not good for things that you "want but don't know exist yet"

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