fuzzyDropdown

fuzzyDropdown is a jQuery plugin that converts a select box into a fuzzy searchable dropdown (using https://github.com/krisk/fuse).

####What is fuzzy string matching/searching?

In computer science, approximate string matching (often colloquially referred to as fuzzy string searching) is the technique of finding strings that match a pattern approximately (rather than exactly). - Wikipedia

####Back to your regularly scheduled readme

fuzzyDropdown proxies your interactions to the underlying select box. Hence you can add event handlers to the select box like before and have everything just work. Also, the dropdown is fully navigable via arrow keys. Look at the example in the examples/ directory for usage. Need a demo? Take two!

• Demo 1
• Demo 2

Changelog

0.0.11

• Bugfixes

0.0.10

• Added the enableBrowserDefaultScroll option

0.0.9

• Minor bugfixes, code rearrangement

0.0.8

• Minor bugfixes, code rearrangement

0.0.7

• Minor bugfixes, code reorganisation and Makefile addition

Installation

Recommended installation method

bower install fuzzyDropdown

Other methods

These methods will not install the dependencies (jQuery and Fuse.js). You will have to install them manually and include them before including fuzzyDropdown. (Use bower, it's simpler).

//via github
git clone git@github.com:zeusdeux/fuzzyDropdown.git

//via jquery plugins
//goto: http://plugins.jquery.com/fuzzyDropdown and download it from there.

//download src/fuzzyDropdown.min.js and include it after jQuery and Fuse in your markup

Usage

The javascript

$( your_select_box_selector ).fuzzyDropdown( options );

fuzzyDropdown takes the following options:

• mainContainer : This is the jQuery selector for the parent container
• arrowUpClass: Even the arrows are drawn via css and this is the class name that shows the arrow facing up
• selectedClass: Name of the css class that will be used to highlight dropdown items when arrow keys are used to navigate them. It is usually the same as your dropdown list item :hover style.
• enableBrowserDefaultScroll (false by default): A boolean value that enables or disables normal browser behaviour (scroll up and down) on arrow up and down presses. You might want to set this to true if you have a list that is longer than the current viewport height.
• Options for Fuse except searchFn, getFn and sortFn. fuzzyDropdown defers to the defaults used by Fuse for these options.

$('#fuzzOptionsList').fuzzyDropdown({
  mainContainer: '#fuzzSearch',
  arrowUpClass: 'fuzzArrowUp',
  selectedClass: 'selected',
  enableBrowserDefaultScroll: true
});

The markup

<select id="fuzzOptionsList">
  <option value="1">Tapout</option>
  <option value="2">Four Seasons</option>
  <option value="3">Ike's Place</option>
  <option value="4">Coats</option>
</select>
<div id="fuzzSearch">
  <div id="fuzzNameContainer">
    <span class="fuzzName"></span>
    <span class="fuzzArrow"></span>
  </div>
  <div id="fuzzDropdownContainer">
    <input type="text" value="" class="fuzzMagicBox" placeholder="search.." />
    <span class="fuzzSearchIcon"></span>
    <ul id="fuzzResults">
    </ul>
  </div>
</div>

Note:

• You can use any class names or ids. The ones in the example above are just the ones that I've used in examples/fuzzyDropdown.html.

The styling

fuzzyDropdown by itself does no styling. All the styling is controlled via css.

This gives you complete freedom to style your dropdown however you want and it'll all just work. Below is some example css.

* {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}
#fuzzSearch {
  width: 50%;
}
#fuzzNameContainer {
  height: 40px;
  padding: 4px 10px;
  border: 1px solid #999;
  box-shadow: inset 0 0 2px 0px #333;
  width: 100%;
  cursor: pointer;
  line-height: 1.9em;
}
.fuzzName {
  display: inline-block;
  width: 96%;
  white-space: nowrap;
  overflow: hidden;
  text-overflow: ellipsis;
}
.fuzzArrow {
  width: 0;
  border-style: solid;
  border-color: #333 transparent transparent transparent;
  border-width: 7px;
  display: inline-block;
  cursor: pointer;
  position: relative;
  top: -3px;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease-in;
  transition: all 0.1s ease-in;
}
.fuzzArrow:hover {
  border-top-color: #888;
}
.fuzzArrow.fuzzArrowUp {
  border-color: transparent transparent #333 transparent;
  top: -11px;
}
#fuzzDropdownContainer {
  display: none;
  width: 100%;
  margin: 0 0 5px 0;
  border: 1px solid #999;
  padding: 12px 4px 4px;
  position: relative;
}
.fuzzMagicBox {
  width: 99%;
  height: 26px;
  margin: 0 auto;
}
.fuzzSearchIcon {
  width: 20px;
  height: 30px;
  position: relative;
  display: inline-block;
  background: transparent;
  top: -20px;
  left: 95%;
}
.fuzzSearchIcon:before, .fuzzSearchIcon:after {
  content: '';
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  right: 5px;
}
.fuzzSearchIcon:before {
  width: 8px;
  height: 8px;
  border-radius: 50%;
  border: 1px solid #aaa;
}
.fuzzSearchIcon:after {
  height: 7px;
  border-right: 1px solid #aaa;
  top: 9px;
  -webkit-transform: rotate(-32deg);
  -ms-transform: rotate(-32deg);
}
#fuzzResults {
  cursor: pointer;
}
#fuzzResults li:hover {
  color: #aaa;
}
#fuzzResults li.selected {
  color: #aaa;
}
#fuzzResults li {
  list-style: none;
  margin: 20px 0;
}

And you're done!