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Select2 - A better way to make select boxes (with jQuery)

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Re: Select2 - A better way to make select boxes (with jQuery)

#11

Post by makecheck »

While it's always good to have people exploring improvements to UI elements, it would be superior to have those improvements show up as patches to WebKit or Firefox or GNOME or whatever else. Native UI elements need the improvements; that's where UI actually belongs.

On mobile in particular, there's a couple of problems with the web-page approach to UI. One, it adds yet more stuff to download that "shouldn't" be necessary just for a page to be functional. And two, if the interface is too desktop-like I bet it'll either behave badly or not work at all on an iPhone (there's a reason iOS' scroller-menu-thing looks nothing like the Mac's pop-up menu interface despite both using Cocoa). Theoretically the second problem could be addressed by code that detects the device type and presents yet another web interface for mobile, but that'll probably make the first problem of page bloat even worse.

Re: Select2 - A better way to make select boxes (with jQuery)

#12

Post by krsunny »

makecheck wrote: post #11

While it's always good to have people exploring improvements to UI elements, it would be superior to have those improvements show up as patches to WebKit or Firefox or GNOME or whatever else. Native UI elements need the improvements; that's where UI actually belongs. On mobile in particular, there's a couple of problems with the web-page approach to UI. One, it adds yet more stuff to download that "shouldn't" be nece…

Good points but I think you're preaching to the choir. The bottleneck is the W3C which is probably bogged with all sorts of red tape and politics.

Re: Select2 - A better way to make select boxes (with jQuery)

#14

Post by laktek »

If you are on the look for a plugin with better auto-completion features, let me shamelessly pitch jQuery Smart AutoComplete - http://laktek.com/2011/03/03/introducing-jquery-smart-autoco....

It got type ahead support (like in Google search field), ability to define your own filtering algorithm and robust event system which gives the flexibility to modify almost any aspect of the behaviour.

Here's the GitHub repo - https://github.com/laktek/jQuery-Smart-Auto-Complete

Re: Select2 - A better way to make select boxes (with jQuery)

#15

Post by cmaitchison »

christiangenco wrote: post #2

Obligatory: what's the difference between Select2 and Chosen? ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4074501 )

I chose select2 for homehelpnow.com.au because of paged ajax lookups. Check out the place search box on homehelpnow.com.au. Its AU-based, so might be a bit slower for you US folk.

Re: Select2 - A better way to make select boxes (with jQuery)

#18

Post by thristian »

krsunny wrote: post #12
makecheck wrote: post #11

While it's always good to have people exploring improvements to UI elements, it would be superior to have those improvements show up as patches to WebKit or Firefox or GNOME or whatever else. Native UI elements need the improvements; that's where UI actually belongs. On mobile in particular, there's a couple of problems with the web-page approach to UI. One, it adds yet more stuff to download that "shouldn't" be nece…

Good points but I think you're preaching to the choir. The bottleneck is the W3C which is probably bogged with all sorts of red tape and politics.

That's why we have the WHATWG, whose mode of operation is much closer to the IETF's mantra of "rough consensus and running code".

Re: Select2 - A better way to make select boxes (with jQuery)

#19

Post by WiseWeasel »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #8
WiseWeasel wrote: post #7

It's annoying that Select2 and Chosen don't create a 'close menu' transparent overlay over the rest of the page, so the menu closes if you click outside of it.

It closes when I click outside of it.

Ah, it does on the computer. On the iPad and iPhone, it does not for some reason.
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