/tagify

lightweight, efficient Tags input component in Vanilla JS / React / Angular

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT



Tagify - lightweight input "tags" script

Transforms an input field or a textarea into a Tags Componen, in an easy, customizable way, with great performance and tiny code footprint, exploded with features.
VanillaReactVueAngular

👉 See Demos 👈

Table of Contents

Installation

npm i @yaireo/tagify --save

usage (in your bundle):

import Tagify from '@yaireo/tagify'

var tagify = new Tagify(...)

Don't forget to include tagify.css file in your project. CSS location: @yaireo/tagify/dist/tagify.css SCSS location: @yaireo/tagify/src/tagify.scss See SCSS usecase & example

Selling points

  • JS minified ~30kb (~9kb GZIP)
  • CSS minified ~8kb (~2kb GZIP) - generated from SCSS with variables
  • Easily customized, plenty of settings for common scenarios
  • Your input/textarea node values kept in sync with Tagify
  • ARIA accessibility support
  • Many useful custom events
  • Easily change direction to RTL (via the SCSS file)
  • Internet Explorer - A polyfill script can be used: tagify.polyfills.min.js in /dist

What can Tagify do

  • Can be applied on input & textarea elements
  • Supports mix content (text and tags together)
  • Supports single-value mode (like <select>)
  • Supports whitelist
  • Supports blacklists
  • Supports Templates for customized markup: wrapper, tag item & suggestion item
  • Shows suggestions selectbox (flexiable settings & styling) at full width or next to the typed texted (caret)
  • Allows setting suggestions' aliases for easier fuzzy-searching
  • Auto-suggest input as-you-type with ability to auto-complete
  • Can paste in multiple values: tag 1, tag 2, tag 3 or even newline-separated tags
  • Tags can be created by Regex delimiter or by pressing the "Enter" key / focusing of the input
  • Validate tags by Regex pattern
  • Tags are editable
  • Supports read-only mode to the whole componenet or per-tag
  • Each tag can have any properties desired (class, data-whatever, readonly...)
  • Automatically disallow duplicate tags (vis "settings" object)
  • Has built-in CSS loader, if needed (Ex. AJAX whitelist pulling)
  • Tags can be trimmed via hellip by giving max-width to the tag element in your CSS

Building the project

Simply run gulp in your terminal, from the project's path (Gulp should be installed first).

Source files are this path: /src/

Output files, which are automatically generated using Gulp, are in: /dist/

The rest of the files are most likely irrelevant.

Adding tags dynamically

var tagify = new Tagify(...);

tagify.addTags(["banana", "orange", "apple"])

// or add tags with pre-defined propeties

tagify.addTags([{value:"banana", color:"yellow"}, {value:"apple", color:"red"}, {value:"watermelon", color:"green"}])

output value

There are two possible ways to get the value of the tags:

  1. Access the tagify's instance's value prop: tagify.value (Array of tags)
  2. Access the original input's value: inputElm.value (Stringified Array of tags)

Ajax whitelist

Dynamically-loaded suggestions list (whitelist) from the server (as the user types) is a frequent need to many.

Tagify comes with its own loading animation, which is a very lightweight CSS-only code, and the loading state is controlled by the method tagify.loading which accepts true or false as arguments.

Below is a basic example using the fetch API. I advise to abort the last request on any input before starting a new request.

Example:
var input = document.querySelector('input'),
    tagify = new Tagify(input, {whitelist:[]}),
    controller; // for aborting the call

// listen to any keystrokes which modify tagify's input
tagify.on('input', onInput)

function onInput( e ){
  var value = e.detail.value;
  tagify.settings.whitelist.length = 0; // reset the whitelist

  // https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/AbortController/abort
  controller && controller.abort();
  controller = new AbortController();

  // show loading animation and hide the suggestions dropdown
  tagify.loading(true).dropdown.hide.call(tagify)

  fetch('http://get_suggestions.com?value=' + value, {signal:controller.signal})
    .then(RES => RES.json())
    .then(function(whitelist){
      // update inwhitelist Array in-place
      tagify.settings.whitelist.splice(0, whitelist.length, ...whitelist)
      tagify.loading(false).dropdown.show.call(tagify, value); // render the suggestions dropdown
    })
}

Edit tags

Tags which aren't read-only can be edited by double-clicking them (by default) or by changing the editTags setting to 1, making tags editable by single-clicking them.

The value is saved on blur or by pressing enter key. Pressing Escape will revert the change trigger blur. ctrlz will revert the change if an edited tag was marked as not valid (perhaps duplicate or blacklisted)

To prevent all tags from being allowed to be editable, set the editTags setting to false (or null).
To do the same but for specific tag(s), set those tags' data with editable property set to false:

<input value='[{"value":"foo", "editable":false}, {"value":"bar"}]'>

DOM Templates

It's possible to control the templates for the following HTML elements tagify generates by modying the settings.templates Object with your own custom functions which should output a string.

Default templates
templates : {
  wrapper(input, settings){
    return `<tags class="tagify ${settings.mode ? "tagify--" + settings.mode : ""} ${input.className}"
                        ${settings.readonly ? 'readonly aria-readonly="true"' : 'aria-haspopup="listbox" aria-expanded="false"'}
                        role="tagslist"
                        tabIndex="-1">
                <span contenteditable data-placeholder="${settings.placeholder || '&#8203;'}" aria-placeholder="${settings.placeholder || ''}"
                    class="tagify__input"
                    role="textbox"
                    aria-controls="dropdown"
                    aria-autocomplete="both"
                    aria-multiline="${settings.mode=='mix'?true:false}"></span>
            </tags>`
  },

  tag(value, tagData){
      return `<tag title='${tagData.title || value}'
                contenteditable='false'
                spellcheck='false'
                tabIndex="-1"
                class='tagify__tag ${tagData.class ? tagData.class : ""}'
                ${this.getAttributes(tagData)}>
          <x title='' class='tagify__tag__removeBtn' role='button' aria-label='remove tag'></x>
          <div>
              <span class='tagify__tag-text'>${value}</span>
          </div>
      </tag>`
  },

  dropdownItem( item ){
    var mapValueTo = this.settings.dropdown.mapValueTo,
        value = (mapValueTo
            ? typeof mapValueTo == 'function'
                ? mapValueTo(item)
                : item[mapValueTo]
            : item.value) || item.value,
        sanitizedValue = (value || item).replace(/`|'/g, "&#39;");

    return `<div ${this.getAttributes(item)}
                class='tagify__dropdown__item ${item.class ? item.class : ""}'
                tabindex="0"
                role="option"
                aria-labelledby="dropdown-label">${sanitizedValue}</div>`;
  }
}

Suggestions selectbox

The suggestions selectbox is shown is a whitelist Array of Strings or Objects was passed in the settings when the Tagify instance was created. Suggestions list will only be rendered if there are at least two matching sugegstions (case-insensetive).

The selectbox dropdown will be appended to the document's <body> element and will be rendered by default in a position below (bottom of) the Tagify element. Using the keyboard arrows up/down will highlight an option from the list, and hitting the Enter key to select.

It is possible to tweak the selectbox dropdown via 2 settings:

  • enabled - this is a numeral value which tells Tagify when to show the suggestions dropdown, when a minimum of N characters were typed.
  • maxItems - Limits the number of items the suggestions selectbox will render
var input = document.querySelector('input'),
    tagify = new Tagify(input, {
        whitelist : ['aaa', 'aaab', 'aaabb', 'aaabc', 'aaabd', 'aaabe', 'aaac', 'aaacc'],
        dropdown : {
            classname : "color-blue",
            enabled   : 0,         // show the dropdown immediately on focus
            maxItems  : 5,
            position  : "text",    // place the dropdown near the typed text
            closeOnSelect : false, // keep the dropdown open after selecting a suggestion
        }
    });

Will render:

<div class="tagify__dropdown" style="left: 993.5px; top: 106.375px; width: 616px;">
    <div class="tagify__dropdown__item" value="aaab">aaab</div>
    <div class="tagify__dropdown__item" value="aaabb">aaabb</div>
    <div class="tagify__dropdown__item" value="aaabc">aaabc</div>
    <div class="tagify__dropdown__item" value="aaabd">aaabd</div>
    <div class="tagify__dropdown__item" value="aaabe">aaabe</div>
</div>

By default searching the suggestions is using fuzzy-search (see settings).

If you wish to assign alias to items (in your suggestion list), add the searchBy property to whitelist items you wish to have an alias for. In the below example, when typing a part of string which is included in the searchBy property, the suggested item will match "Israel" will be rendered in the suggestion list selectbox.

Example for a suggestion item alias

whitelist = [
    ...
    { value:'Israel', code:'IL', searchBy:'holy land, desert, middle east' },
    ...
]

Another handy setting is dropdown.searchKeys which, like the above dropdown.searchBy setting, allows expanding the search of any typed terms to more than the value property of the whitelist items (if items are a Collection).

Example whitelist:

[
  {
    value    : "foo",
    nickname : "bar",
    email    : "baz@mail.com"
  },
  ...
]

// setting to search in other keys:

{
  dropdown: {
    searchKeys: ["nickname", "email"] // "value" & "searchBy" key are searched in, regardless
  }
}

Mixed-Content

To use this feature it must be toggled - see settings.

When mixing text with tags, the original textarea (or input) element will have a value as follows:

[[cartman]]⁠ and [[kyle]]⁠ do not know [[Homer simpson]]⁠

If the inital value of the textarea or input is formatted as the above example, tagify will try to automatically convert everything between [[ & ]] to a tag, if tag exists in the whitelist, so make sure when the Tagify instance is initialized, that it has tags with the correct value property that match the same values that appear between [[ & ]].

Applying the setting dropdown.position:"text" is encouraged for mixed-content tags, because the suggestions list will be rendered right next to the caret location and not the the bottom of the Tagify componenet, which might look weird when there is already a lot of content at multiple lines.

If a tag does not exists in the whitelist, it may be created by the user and all you should do is listen to the add event and update your local/remote state.

Single-Value

Similar to native <Select> element, but allows typing free text as value.

React

A Tagify React component is exported as <Tags> from react.tagify.js:

Check the live demo for a live React integration example

Angular

TagifyComponent which will be used by your template as <tagify>

Example:
<div>
  testing tagify wrapper
  <tagify [settings]="settings"
          (add)="onAdd($event)"
          (remove)="onRemove($event)">
  </tagify>
  <button (click)="clearTags()">clear</button>
  <button (click)="addTags()">add Tags</button>
</div>

TagifyService

(The tagifyService is a singletone injected by angular, do not create a new instance of it) Remember to add TagifyService to your module definition.

Example:
import {Component, OnDestroy} from '@angular/core';
import {TagifyService} from '@yaireo/tagify';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./app.component.css']
})
export class AppComponent implements OnDestroy {

  constructor(private tagifyService: TagifyService) {}
  public settings = { blacklist: ['fucking', 'shit']};

  onAdd(tagify) {
    console.log('added a tag', tagify);
  }

  onRemove(tags) {
    console.log('removed a tag', tags);
  }
  clearTags() {
    this.tagifyService.removeAll();
  }
  addTags() {
    this.tagifyService.addTags(['this', 'is', 'cool']);
  }
  ngOnDestroy() {
    this.tagifyService.destroy();
  }
}

jQuery version

jQuery.tagify.js

A jQuery wrapper verison is also available, but I advise not using it because it's basically the exact same as the "normal" script (non-jqueryfied) and all the jQuery's wrapper does is allowing to chain the event listeners for ('add', 'remove', 'invalid')

$('[name=tags]')
    .tagify()
    .on('add', function(e, tagName){
        console.log('added', tagName)
    });

Accessing methods can be done via the .data('tagify'):

$('[name=tags]').tagify();
// get tags from the server (ajax) and add them:
$('[name=tags]').data('tagify').addTags('aaa, bbb, ccc')

FAQ

To render all the tags at the same line, without tags wrapping to new lines, add this to your .tagify CSS:

flex-wrap: nowrap;

CSS Variables (see MDN docs)

These CSS variables allow easy customization without the need to manually write CSS. If you do wish to heavily style your Tagify components, then you can use these variables within your modified styles.

For example how this can be used, see the demos page.

Name Info
--tags-border-color The outer border color which surrounds tagify
--tag-bg Tag background color
--tag-hover Tag background color on hover (mouse)
--tag-text-color Tag text color
--tag-text-color--edit Tag text color when a Tag is being edited
--tag-pad Tag padding, from all sides. Ex. .3em .5em
--tag--min-width Minimum Tag width
--tag--max-width Maximum tag width, which gets trimmed with hellip after
--tag-inset-shadow-size This is the inner shadow size, which dictates the color of the Tags.
It's important the size fits exactly to the tag.
Change this if you change the --tag-pad or fontsize.
--tag-invalid-color For border color of edited tags with invalid value being typed into them
--tag-invalid-bg Background color for invalid Tags.
--tag-remove-bg Tag background color when hovering the × button.
--tag-remove-btn-bg The remove (×) button background color
--tag-remove-btn-bg--hover The remove (×) button background color on hover
--loader-size Loading animation size. 1em is pretty big, default is a bit less.
--tag-hide-transition Controls the transition property when a tag is removed. default is '.3s'

Methods

Name Parameters Info
destroy Reverts the input element back as it was before Tagify was applied
removeAllTags Removes all tags and resets the original input tag's value property
addTags tagsItems, clearInput, skipInvalid Accepts a String (word, single or multiple with a delimiter), an Array of Objects (see above) or Strings
removeTag Node/String Removes a specific tag. Argument is the tag DOM element to be removed, or value. When nothing passed, removes last tag (see source code)
loadOriginalValues String/Array Converts the input's value into tags. This method gets called automatically when instansiating Tagify. Also works for mixed-tags
getTagIndexByValue String Returns the index of a specific tag, by value
parseMixTags String Converts a String argument ([[foo]]⁠ and [[bar]]⁠ are..) into HTML with mixed tags & texts
getTagElms Returns a DOM nodes list of all the tags
getTagElmByValue String Returns a specific tag DOM node by value
editTag Node Goes to edit-mode in a specific tag
replaceTag tagElm, tagData Exit a tag's edit-mode. if "tagData" exists, replace the tag element with new data and update Tagify value
loading Boolean Toogle loading state on/off (Ex. AJAX whitelist pulling)

Events

All triggered events return the instance's scope (tagify).
See e.detail for custom event additional data.

See Examples
var tagify = new Tagify(...)

// events are chainable and multiple events may be binded for the same callback
tagify
  .on('input', e => console.log(e.detail))
  .on('edit:input edit:updated edit:start edit:keydown', e => console.log(e.type, e.detail))
Name Info
add A tag has been added
remove A tag has been removed
invalid A tag has been added but did not pass vaildation. See event detail
input Input event, when a tag is being typed/edited. e.detail exposes value, inputElm & isValid
click Clicking a tag. Exposes the tag element, its index & data
keydown When tagify input has focus and a key was pressed
focus The component currently has focus
blur The component lost focus
edit:input Typing inside an edited tag
edit:beforeUpdate Just before a tag has been updated, while still in "edit" mode
edit:updated A tag as been updated (changed view editing or by directly calling the replaceTag() method)
edit:start A tag is now in "edit mode"
edit:keydown keydown event while an edited tag is in focus
dropdown:show Suggestions dropdown is to be rendered. The dropdown DOM node is passed in the callback, see demo.
dropdown:hide Suggestions dropdown has been removed from the DOM
dropdown:select Suggestions dropdown item selected (by mouse/keyboard/touch)
dropdown:scroll Tells the percentage scrolled. (event.detail.percentage)

Settings

Name Type Default Info
placeholder String Placeholder text. If this attribute is set on an input/textarea element it will override this setting
delimiters String , [regex string] split tags by any of these delimiters. Example: `",
pattern String null Validate input by REGEX pattern (can also be applied on the input itself as an attribute) Ex: /[1-9]/
mode String null Use select for single-value dropdown-like select box. See mix as value to allow mixed-content. The 'pattern' setting must be set to some character.
mixTagsInterpolator Array ['[[', ']]'] Interpolation for mix mode. Everything between these will become a tag
mixTagsAllowedAfter Regex `/, .
duplicates Boolean false Should duplicate tags be allowed or not
enforceWhitelist Boolean false Should ONLY use tags allowed in whitelist.
In mix-mode, setting it to false will not allow creating new tags.
autocomplete.enabled Boolean true Tries to suggest the input's value while typing (match from whitelist) by adding the rest of term as grayed-out text
autocomplete.rightKey Boolean false If true, when → is pressed, use the suggested value to create a tag, else just auto-completes the input. In mixed-mode this is ignored and treated as "true"
whitelist Array [] An array of tags which only they are allowed
blacklist Array [] An array of tags which aren't allowed
addTagOnBlur Boolean true Automatically adds the text which was inputed as a tag when blur event happens
callbacks Object {} Exposed callbacks object to be triggered on events: 'add' / 'remove' tags
maxTags Number Infinity Maximum number of allowed tags. when reached, adds a class "tagify--hasMaxTags" to <Tags>
editTags Number 2 Number of clicks on a tag to enter "edit" mode. Only 1 or 2 work. false or null will disallow editing
templates Object wrapper, tag, dropdownItem Object consisting of functions which return template strings
transformTag Function undefined Takes a tag input as argument and returns a transformed value
keepInvalidTags Boolean false If true, do not remove tags which did not pass validation
skipInvalid Boolean false If true, do not add invalid, temporary, tags before automatically removing them
backspace * true On pressing backspace key:
true - remove last tag
edit - edit last tag
dropdown.enabled Number 2 Minimum characters to input to show the suggestions list. "false" to disable
dropdown.maxItems Number 10 Maximum items to show in the suggestions list dropdown
dropdown.classname String "" Custom class name for the dropdown suggestions selectbox
dropdown.fuzzySearch Boolean true Enables filtering dropdown items values' by string containing and not only beginning
dropdown.position String null manual - will not render the dropdown, and you would need to do it yourself. See "events" section.
text - will place the dropdown next to the caret
all - normal, full-width design
dropdown.highlightFirst Boolean false When a suggestions list is shown, highilght the first item, and also suggest it in the input (The suggestion can be accepted with key)
dropdown.closeOnSelect Boolean true close the dropdown after selecting an item, if enabled:0 is set (which means always show dropdown on focus)
dropdown.mapValueTo Function/String if whitelist is an Array of Objects:
Ex. [{value:'foo', email:'foo@a.com'},...])
this setting controlls which data key will be printed in the dropdown.
Ex. mapValueTo: data => "To:" + data.email
Ex. mapValueTo: "email"
dropdown.searchKeys Array ["value", "searchBy"] When a user types something and trying to match the whitelist items for suggestions, this setting allows matching other keys of a whitelist objects