joshuabremer/emberx-select

Select component for Ember based on the native html select element.

emberx-select

A Select component based on the native html select.

We've tried other select components, and were missing the reliability, maintainability, and accessbility of the native html <select>. <x-select> is a drop-in component to let you use any object for your selectable options. You can use it out of the box, or as a building block of something more ambitious.

The goal of <x-select> is to let you see how it works and style it right in your template, rather than passing in a ball of configuration or wrapping a hard-coded, inaccessible jQuery plugin.

Installation

ember install emberx-select

By allowing arbitrary html to appear in the template of the select element, you can use it just like you would normally. This means things like having <optgroup> tags inside your select, or even plain old <option> elements to represent things like empty values.

XSelect thinly wraps a native <select> element so that it can be object and binding aware. It is used in conjuction with the x-option component to construct select boxes. E.g.

{{#x-select value=bob action="selectPerson" as |xs|}}
  {{#xs.option value=fred}}Fred Flintstone{{/xs.option}}
  {{#xs.option value=bob}}Bob Newhart{{/xs.option}}
{{/x-select}}

the options are always up to date, so that when the object bound to value changes, the corresponding option becomes selected.

Whenever the select tag receives a change event, it will fire action.

Contextual Components

As of version 3.0.0, emberx-select will only support contextual components. This means you will have to use Ember 2.3 or higher. Using contextual components allows emberx-select to skip some potentially expensive DOM traversals. Now the options can register through data rather than through the DOM.

{{#x-select value=model.status as |xs|}}
  {{#xs.option value=1}}Active{{/xs.option}}
  {{#xs.option value=2}}Inactive{{/xs.option}}
{{/x-select}}

If you're using a lower version of Ember, emberx-select will continue to work without block params for the forseeable future.

Multiselect

As of version 1.1.0, emberx-select supports the multiple option. This means you can pass an array as its value, and it will set its selections directly on that array.

{{#x-select value=selections multiple=true action="selectionsChanged" as |xs|}}
 {{#xs.option value=fred}}Fred Flintstone{{/xs.option}}
 {{#xs.option value=bob}}Bob Newhart{{/xs.option}}
 {{#xs.option value=andrew}}Andrew WK{{/xs.option}}
{{/x-select}}

The selections array will be initialized to an empty array if not present.

Action and Action Arguments

The action that is dispatched by x-select whenever the selected value or values change (change event) has a function signature of:

/**
* @param value {Object} the value selected by the user.
* @param component {Ember.Component} the x-select component itself
*/
function (value, component) {
  // action body...
}

Most of the time all you need is the value that has been selected, but sometimes your action requires more context than just that. In those cases, you can associate arbitrary attributes with the component itself and use them later inside your action handler. For example:

{{#x-select action="didMakeSelection" default=anything as |xs|}}
  <option>Nothing</option>
  {{#xs.option value=something}}Something{{/xs.option}}
{{/x-select}}

then, inside your action handler:

export default Ember.Route.extend({
  actions: {
    didMakeSelection: function(selection, component) {
      if (selection) {
        this.set('selection', selection)
      } else {
        this.set('selection', component.get('default'))
      }
    }
  }
});

Other Actions

x-select also provides other actions that fire on different event types. These actions follow the HTML input event naming convention.

onblur

onblur fires anytime the blur event is triggered on the x-select component. When the action fires it sends three arguments: the component, the value, and the jQuery event.

onfocusout

onfocusout fires anytime the focusOut event is triggered on the x-select component. When the action fires it sends three arguments: the component, the value, and the jQuery event.

onclick

onclick fires when x-select is clicked. When the action fires it sends three arguments: the component, the value, and the jQuery event.

Test Helpers

Since emberx-select uses internal identifiers as the value attribute, it doesn't integrate with the fillIn test helper. But don't fret, we've automatically injected the test helper into your app.

Using the test helper

We support both multiselects and regular selects. To use, you need to specify the class on the select (or a jquery object) as the first argument and the rest of the arguments are the options you'd like to select. For example:

//... Single select
  select('.my-drop-down', 'My Option');
//...

Multiselect

//... Multiselect
  select(Ember.$('.my-drop-down'), 'My Option', 'My Option Two', 'My Option Three');
//...

Component Integration tests

To use the select helper in component integration tests you have to import the select function into your test:

  import { select } from 'yourappname/tests/helpers/x-select';

And then you can use the helper like you would normally.

Why am I getting a JSHint error?

You need to run the generator: ember g emberx-select

Why am I getting a "Can't find variable: select" error?

You need to either run the generator (ember g emberx-select) or import the test helper into your test-helper.js file:

import xSelectHelper from './helpers/x-select';
xSelectHelper();

EmberX

emberx-select is part of the "missing components of ember" collectively known as emberx:

• emberx-select
• emberx-slider
• emberx-file-input

Other Resources

• EmberScreencasts video on creating select boxes with vanilla Ember and emberx-select

Running Tests

• ember test
• ember test --server

Code of Conduct

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms, which can be found in the CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file in this repository.