Vue Tags Input v3

A simple tags input with typeahead built with Vue3.

Live Demo

Installation via NPM

npm i @james090500/vue-tagsinput

Then register the component with Vue:

import VueTagsInput from '@james090500/vue-tagsinput';

Vue.component('tags-input', VueTagsInput);

Include the dist/style.css file on your page to apply the styling. You can use CDN, require() it inside your JS code, or @include it inside your (S)CSS assets. Read the Styling section to learn how to customize the appearance.

Installation via CDN

If you're not using NPM, you can include the required files into your page manually from a CDN. Don't forget to include Vue as well. For example:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/vue/2.6.12/vue.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@james090500/[email protected]/dist/james090500-vue-tagsinput.js"></script>

<script>
    new Vue({
        el: '#app',
        components: { "tags-input": VueTagsInput },
    });
</script>

Include the CSS file on your page to apply the styling. Read the Styling section to learn how to customize the appearance.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@james090500/[email protected]/dist/style.css">

IMPORTANT: Always grab the latest versions of the package from JSDELIVR, the ones provided in the examples above might be outdated. Same goes for Vue.js.

Usage

<tags-input element-id="tags"
    v-model="selectedTags"
    :existing-tags="[
        { key: 'web-development', value: 'Web Development' },
        { key: 'php', value: 'PHP' },
        { key: 'javascript', value: 'JavaScript' },
    ]"
    :typeahead="true"></tags-input>

<tags-input element-id="tags"
    v-model="selectedTags"
    :existing-tags="[
        { key: 1, value: 'Web Development' },
        { key: 2, value: 'PHP' },
        { key: 3, value: 'JavaScript' },
    ]"
    :typeahead="true"></tags-input>

element-id will be applied to id and name attributes of the hidden input that contains the list of the selected tags as its value. Optionally you can also use the v-model directive to bind a variable to the array of selected tags.

existing-tags is the list of all the existing/valid tags. Include it even if you're not using typeahead.

Setting Selected Tags Programmatically

If you need to programmatically (manually) set or change the list of selected tags from "outside" - just set the required value to the variable bound with the component via v-model.

For example, the variable name is selectedTags:

<tags-input element-id="tags"
    v-model="selectedTags"></tags-input>

You can pre-set the value of this variable:

new Vue({
    el: '#app',

    components: { VueTagsInput },

    data: {
        selectedTags: [
            { key: 'web-development', value: 'Web Development' },
            { key: 'php', value: 'PHP' },
            { key: 'javascript', value: 'JavaScript' },
        ],
    }
});

... or change it whenever you need to:

new Vue({
    el: '#app',

    components: { VueTagsInput },

    data: {
        selectedTags: [],
    },

    methods: {
        setSelectedTags() {
            this.selectedTags = [{ key: 'php', value: 'PHP' }];
        }
    }
});

Existing And Selected Tags Collections

As you've noticed in the examples above, an item from a tag collection looks like this:

{ key: 'web-development', value: 'Web Development' }

In reality, you're not limited to what your tag objects should look like. You can name your fields however you want, just don't forget to tell the component the correct field names. To customize the key field name, set the id-field prop. To customize the value field name, set the text-field prop. For example:

<tags-input element-id="tags"
    v-model="selectedTags"
    :existing-tags="[
        { id: 1, name: 'Web Development' },
        { id: 2, name: 'PHP' },
        { id: 3, name: 'JavaScript' },
    ]"
    id-field="id"
    text-field="name"></tags-input>

Note that the selected tags collection should have the same id and text field names as the existing tags collection.

Your tag options can also have other (extra) fields, for example when you fetch data from your DB and pass it directly to the component as is. This is perfectly fine and won't create any problems.

All Available Props

Prop	Type	Default	Description
element-id	String	-	name for the hidden form input with the value.
input-id	String	-	id & name for the visible input.
disabled	Boolean	false	Disable the element. You won't be able to add new tags and remove the existing ones.
existing-tags	Array	[]	An array with existing tags in the following format: [{ key: 'id-or-slug-of-the-tag', value: 'Tag\'s text representation' }, {...}, ...]
id-field	String	'key'	The name of the "id" field in your existing and selected tags collections. The actual value of each tag.
text-field	String	'value'	The name of the "text" field in your existing and selected tags collections. This is what you see on the tag badges. Used when searching for a tag (typeahead).
display-field	String	null	The name of the "display" field in your existing and selected tags collections. Overrides your tag's "text" field to display additional data in dropdown lists.
value-fields	String	null	A comma-separated list of fields to be included in the hidden inputs' values. These make up data that will be returned with the form as FormData. null means "include all fields".
typeahead	Boolean	false	Whether the typeahead (autocomplete) functionality should be enabled.
typeahead-style	String	'badges'	The autocomplete prompt style. Possible values: badges, dropdown.
typeahead-max-results	Number	0	Maximum number of typeahead results to be shown. 0 - unlimited.
typeahead-activation-threshold	Number	1	Show typeahead results only after at least this many characters were entered. When set to 0, typeahead with all the available tags will be displayed on input focus.
typeahead-always-show	Boolean	false	Always show typeahead, even if not focused or under typeahead-activation-threshold.
typeahead-show-on-focus	Boolean	true	Show typeahead on input field focus.
typeahead-hide-discard	Boolean	false	Hides the 'Discard Search Results' option.
placeholder	String	'Add a tag'	The placeholder of the tag input.
typeahead-url	String	''	If the option is set, the URL will be used for AJAX search/typeahead. Use the :search wildcard wherever you want the search query to go, for example http://example.com/tags?search=:search. The returned data must be in the existing-tags format.
typeahead-callback	Function	null	An optional callback to implement custom search/typeahead functionality. Accepts search query as a parameter. For example, this is useful when you want to implement custom AJAX calls with headers and other options. Must return a Promise that resolves with data in the existing-tags format.
discard-search-text	String	'Discard Search Results'	The 'Discard Search Results' button text.
limit	Number	0	Limit the number of tags that can be chosen. 0 = no limit.
hide-input-on-limit	Boolean	false	Hide the input field when the tags limit is reached.
only-existing-tags	Boolean	false	Only existing tags can be added/chosen. New tags won't be created.
case-sensitive-tags	Boolean	false	Determines whether tags are case sensitive. Setting this to true would allow tags like php, PHP, PhP, and so on to be added at the same time.
delete-on-backspace	Boolean	true	Whether deleting tags by pressing Backspace is allowed.
allow-duplicates	Boolean	false	Allow users to add the same tags multiple times.
validate	Function	text => true	Callback to validate tags' text with.
add-tags-on-comma	Boolean	false	Add new tags when comma is pressed. The search (typeahead) results are ignored.
add-tags-on-space	Boolean	false	Add new tags when space is pressed. The search (typeahead) results are ignored.
add-tags-on-blur	Boolean	false	Add new tags when on the input is blur. The search (typeahead) results are ignored.
sort-search-results	Boolean	true	Whether the search results should be sorted.
before-adding-tag	Function	tag => true	Callback to perform additional checks and actions before a tag is added. Return true to allow a tag to be added or false to forbid the action.
before-removing-tag	Function	tag => true	Callback to perform additional checks and actions before a tag is removed. Return true to allow a tag to be added or false to forbid the action.

Events

Event	Description
@initialized	Fired when the component is completely ready to be worked with. Fired from the Vue.js' mounted() method.
@tag-added	Fired when a new tag is added. The slug of the tag is passed along.
@tag-removed	Fired when a tag is removed. The slug of the tag is passed along.
@tags-updated	Fired when a tag is added or removed.
@limit-reached	Fired when the limit of tags is reached
@keydown	Fires on a keydown event
@keyup	Fires on a keyup event
@focus	Fired when the input is focused
@blur	Fired when the input is blurred
@change	Fired when the input text changes

<vue-tags-input
    ...
    @initialized="onInitialized"
    @tag-added="onTagAdded"
    @tag-removed="onTagRemoved"
    @tags-updated="onTagsUpdated"
    @limit-reached="onLimitReached"
    @keydown="onKeyDown"
    @keyup="onKeyUp"
    @focus="onFocus"
    @blur="onBlur"
    @change="onChange"
></vue-tags-input>

<script>
new Vue({
    ...

    methods: {
        onInitialized() {
            console.log('Initialized');
        },

        onTagAdded(slug) {
            console.log(`Tag added: ${slug}`);
        },

        onTagRemoved(slug) {
            console.log(`Tag removed: ${slug}`);
        },

        onTagsUpdated() {
            console.log('Tags updated');
        },

        onLimitReached() {
            console.log('Max Reached');
        },

        onKeyDown() {
            console.log('Key down');
        },

        onKeyUp() {
            console.log('Key up');
        },

        onFocus() {
            console.log('Input focused');
        },

        onBlur() {
            console.log('Input blurred');
        },

        onChange(value) {
            console.log(`Input changed: ${value}`);
        }
    }
});
</script>

Data

v-model

You can bind the array of selected tags to a variable via v-model. A tag object within the array looks like this:

{ key: 'web-development', value: 'Web Development' }

key is whatever unique key you use for the tags in your project. It could be a unique slug, it could be a unique numeric id, it could be something else. value is the text representation of a tag. If you've set custom field names via id-field and text-field props - use those instead of key and value.

Form Data

There's also a hidden text input for each selected tag so that you could easily convert that to FormData. The name and id of the input equal to whatever you set to the element-id prop.

The value of each input equals to a stringified version of a tag object. Note that the tags that don't exist in the existing-tags array will have its key equal to an empty string ''. In your backend you can consider these tags as to be created.

If you don't need whole tag objects, you can specify which tag fields you want to be returned with the value-fields prop. Provide a comma-separated list of fields or a single field name. If you specify a single field, you'll get that field values alone instead of stringified objects.

Styling

If you want to completely re-style the component - write your own styles from scratch using dist/style.css as a reference. Alternatively you can override specific parts of dist/style.css using !important.

Certain classes/styles can be overridden via component props on a per instance basis in case you just want to make minor changes, e.g. you just want to change colors.

Prop	Default class	Area
wrapper-class	tags-input-wrapper-default	Outer appearance of the input - a wrapper providing a border and padding around the selected tags. If you're using CSS frameworks, you could use the frameworks' native classes, e.g. form-control for Bootstrap or input for Bulma.

You can also customize selected tags' badges using the selected-tag slot, for example like this:

<tags-input ...>
    <template v-slot:selected-tag="{ tag, index, removeTag }">
        <span v-html="tag.value"></span>

        <a v-show="!disabled"
            href="#"
            class="tags-input-remove"
            @click.prevent="removeTag(index)"></a>
    </template>
</tags-input>

Using Typeahead (Autocomplete)

When search results are displayed underneath the input, use the arrow down and arrow up keys on the keyboard to move the selection. Press Enter to select a tag. Press Esc to discard the search results and then Enter to add a new tag the way you've typed it.

Breaking Changes

v1.0.0 ... v1.5.0 -> v1.5.1

See the v1 branch for details.

v1.5.1 and above -> v2.*

A pretty serious bug (#53) was fixed in v2.0.0. The data format for the existing-tags prop and the v-model directive has been changed. You can find the new format in this documentation, see above.

v2.3.0 -> v2.4.0

Multiple hidden fields instead of one, so that your backend treats the selected tags as an array.

Changelog

v.2.4.0

• New options: id-field and text-field
• IMPORTANT: multiple hidden fields instead of one, so that your backend treats the selected tags as an array
• New option: value-fields

v.2.3.0

• Individual selected tags are now wrapped in a <slot>
• Fix: existingTags prop modified directly (#94)
• New option: disabled (disable the element) (#92)

v.2.2.0

• New option: hide-input-on-limit
• New option: typeahead-show-on-focus. It is enabled by default and will make the typeahead (badges or dropdown) visible whenever the input field is focused and if there are any tags suggestions.
• Adding active class to the wrapper element when the input field is focused. If you're using the default (provided) style.css file, note that your tags input will now get a "glow" around it when focused.
• Fix: #50
• Fix: Incorrect check for duplicate tags
• Added AJAX search with the typeahead-url option. Solves #60.

v.2.1.0

• New option: typeahead-always-show
• New option: typeahead-hide-discard
• New option: add-tags-on-space
• New event: change
• "Discard Search Results" string (option text) is now customizable
• Fixed a minor bug with removing tags on backspace press

v.2.2.0

• Fix: #43
• Fix: #62

v.2.0.1

• Fix: broken dropdown
• Fix: typeahead/autocomplete doesn't show up on Android
• Fix: Add Tags on Comma doesn't work on Android
• Fix: Mobil users cannot press Esc to discard search results, so added a "Discard search results" button which seemlessly blends into the typeahead (both badges and dropdown).
• New: limit-reached prop

v.2.0.0

• The data format for the existing-tags prop and the v-model directive has been changed

Contribution

Everyone is welcome to contribute. When making a contribution, please base your branch off of dev and merge it into dev as well. Thank you!

Support

This software is absolutely free to use and is developed in the author's free time. If you found this software useful and would like to say thank you to the author, please consider making a donation. It's not the amount, it's the gesture.

• PayPal: https://paypal.me/AlexanderZavyalov