I’m really impressed with the user interface elements in Jira, especially their multi-selection dropdown with autocomplete functionality. I want to build something similar for my web application.
Currently I’m working with jQuery UI for most of my interface components. I’m curious about what underlying technology or framework Jira uses for this specific control. Does anyone know if it’s available as a standalone JavaScript library?
I’m also wondering about licensing considerations if I wanted to use their exact implementation. Are there any open source alternatives that provide similar functionality? I’d be open to commercial solutions too if they offer the same smooth user experience.
Basically I need a dropdown that lets users type to filter options and select multiple items with a clean, professional look.
Been there! Built something similar for an internal project management tool. jQuery UI autocomplete works great for multi-selection once you customize it, though getting the UX smooth takes effort. I extended the widget to keep the dropdown open after selecting and tracked selected values in an array. Added small tag elements (like email clients use) to show selections. The hardest part was nailing keyboard navigation and letting users delete selected items cleanly. If you already know jQuery, this beats learning a new library. Performance was solid with 2000+ items - just threw in some basic debouncing for the filtering.
Skip trying to copy Jira’s exact setup - building your own multi-select component works better. Jira probably uses a customized Select2 or similar library, but they don’t share their implementation details anyway. Try Choices.js if you want something clean and lightweight with multi-select and search built in. React-Select’s great too, but won’t help if you’re stuck with jQuery. Don’t rip off Jira’s actual code (licensing nightmare), but there’s nothing stopping you from building similar functionality. Just focus on making it work well for users instead of copying their visual design.
select2’s your best bet - it handles multi-select perfectly out of the box. used it on 5 projects without any issues. way easier than building your own unless you want to waste time debugging edge cases.