Comment by Pesthuf

2 days ago

I don’t really see if there’s now an option to further improve the select with JavaScript to add, for example, a search textbox for filtering.

And what about the nearly unusable (on desktop) <select multiple>?

8 comments

Pesthuf

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fiddlerwoaroof  2 days ago

I don’t understand the hatred for select multiple on desktop. It’s a list box that uses standard UI conventions that have been present for three or four decades now.

  • TeMPOraL  2 days ago

    They're probably referring to it not being usable without keyboard, unlike regular select, or checkboxes, or anything else sans a text field. Specifically, to select elements one by one, you need to hold down Ctrl (on Windows; modifiers for other OSes are different).

    For better or worse, this element is not obvious for those who didn't grow up using desktop computers 10+ years ago.

  • streptomycin  2 days ago

    I use it in one place in my app, and even with me putting text right above it saying something like "ctrl+click to select multiple entries", I still periodically get emails from confused users. No idea what the actual % is, but it's gotta be some non-trivial fraction of people who just have no idea how to use that thing.

    • fiddlerwoaroof  2 days ago

      The thing is, this is a catch-22 problem: if everyone used the default multiple select, people would know how to operate it (and they’d be able to transfer their knowledge from how the control works elsewhere in their os to the web: for example, if you know how to select multiple files in Finder, Windows Explorer or in a open file dialog, it works exactly the same way in the multiple select control). But, because web developers have decided to invent a 1,001 different multiple selects, the default control is inaccessible.

      The real issue I have with the web is everyone has broken user interface consistency across the platform with custom web controls where the default controls would be fine.

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