Creating a dynamic email input field like Gmail

Other Questions Gmail
1

I’m trying to make an email input field that works like Gmail’s. Here’s what I want it to do:

  1. Split emails when it sees a comma or space
  2. Put each email in its own little box
  3. Let users remove an email by clicking an X
  4. Allow editing by double-clicking an email

I’m thinking of using jQuery for this. Does anyone have tips on how to set this up? Maybe some example code to get me started?

I’ve seen it in action and it looks really neat. It makes managing multiple email addresses so much easier. Any help would be awesome!

2

hey ethan, i’ve worked on something similar before. instead of reinventing the wheel, check out the GmailTagsInput plugin. it does most of what you want out of the box. you’ll just need to tweak the double-click editing part. saves a ton of time and headaches!

3

I’ve actually implemented something similar for a client project recently. Here’s what worked well for us:

We used a combination of jQuery and a custom JavaScript function to handle the email input. The key was using event listeners for keyup and paste events. When a comma or space was detected, we’d split the input, validate each email, and create a new ‘chip’ for valid ones.

For the removal feature, we added a small ‘x’ to each chip and attached a click event to remove it. The editing was trickier - we used a contenteditable span for each email, allowing inline editing on double-click.

One tip: make sure to handle edge cases like consecutive commas or spaces. Also, implement a solid email validation regex to catch invalid inputs early.

It took some fine-tuning, but the end result was pretty slick and user-friendly. Let me know if you want more specifics on any part of the implementation!