After looking for a jQuery plugin for handling a 'tag suggestion' form field, in much the same way ZenDesk.com does, I ended up developing a customization of jQuery UI that does the same interaction. Levy Carneiro Jr.
Check the example.html for a demo.
First, load jQuery, jQuery UI and the plugin:
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.12/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="js/tag-it.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
Notice, to make it work under IE you have to additionally load 'js/ie-compat.js'.
<script src="js/ie-compat.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
Now, let's attach it to an existing <ul> box:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$("#mytags").tagit();
});
</script>
<ul id="mytags">
<!-- Existing list items will be pre-added to the tags -->
<li>Tag1</li>
<li>Tag2</li>
</ul>
This will turn the list into a tag-it list:
<ul id="mytags" class="tagit">
<!-- Existing list items will be pre-added to the tags -->
<li class="tagit-choice">
Tag1
<a class="close">x</a>
<input type="hidden" style="display:none;" value="Tag1" name="item[tags][]">
</li>
<li class="tagit-choice">
Tag2
<a class="close">x</a>
<input type="hidden" style="display:none;" value="Tag2" name="item[tags][]">
</li>
<li class="tagit-new">
<input class="tagit-input ui-autocomplete-input" type="text" autocomplete="off" role="textbox" aria-autocomplete="list" aria-haspopup="true">
</li>
</ul>
Tag-it accepts several options to customize the behaviour:
Used to build the name of the hidden input field: itemName[fieldName][].
$("#mytags").tagit({
itemName: "user"
});
Defaults to item.
Used to build the name of the hidden input field: itemName[fieldName][].
$("#mytags").tagit({
fieldName: "skills"
});
Defaults to tags.
Used as source for the autocompletion.
$("#mytags").tagit({
availableTags: ["c++", "java", "php", "javascript", "ruby", "python", "c"]
});
Defaults to an empty array [].
Can be used to add custom behaviour before the Tag is added to the DOM. The function receives the tag as parameter.
$("#mytags").tagit({
onTagAdded: function(tag) {
// do something special
}
});
Can be used to add custom behaviour before the Tag is removed from the DOM. The function receives the tag as parameter.
$("#mytags").tagit({
onTagRemoved: function(tag) {
// do something special
}
});
Can be used to add custom behaviour when the Tag is clicked from the DOM. The function receives the tag as parameter.
$("#mytags").tagit({
onTagClicked: function(tag) {
// do something special
}
});
Can be overwritten in order to use custom autocompletion sources like Ajax requests. The default function filters the strings in availableTags and subtracts the already assigned tags.
When removeConfirmation is enabled the user has to press the backspace key twice to remove the last tag. After the first keypress the last tag receives a remove css class which can be used to visually highlight the tag.
Defaults to false.
whether the duplication check should do a case sensitive check or not.
Defaults to true.
When allowSpaces is enabled the user is not required to wrap multi-word tags in quotation marks. ie. user can enter John Smith instead of "John Smith"
Defaults to false.
When enabled, will use a single hidden field for the form, rather than one per tag. It will delimit tags in the field with singleFieldDelimiter.
Defaults to false
Defaults to ','
Set this to an input DOM node to use an existing form field. Any text in it will be erased on init. But it will be populated with the text of tags as they are created, delimited by singleFieldDelimiter. If this is not set, we create an input node for it, with the name given in fieldName, ignoring itemName.
Defalts to null
Optionally set a tabindex attribute on the input that gets created for tag-it.
Defaults to null
Clears the widget of all tags -- removes each tag it contains, so the onTagRemoved event callback (if set in the options) will be called for each.
$("#mytags").tagit('removeAll');
Adds new tag to the list.
$("#mytags").tagit('createTag', 'brandNewTag');