Primitives to build simple, flexible, WAI-ARIA compliant React autocomplete/dropdown/select/combobox components

See the intro blog post and Episode 79 of the Full Stack Radio podcast

You need an autocomplete/dropdown/select experience in your application and you want it to be accessible. You also want it to be simple and flexible to account for your use cases.

This is a component that controls user interactions and state for you so you can create autocomplete/dropdown/select/etc. components. It uses a render prop which gives you maximum flexibility with a minimal API because you are responsible for the rendering of everything and you simply apply props to what you're rendering.

This differs from other solutions which render things for their use case and then expose many options to allow for extensibility resulting in a bigger API that is less flexible as well as making the implementation more complicated and harder to contribute to.

NOTE: The original use case of this component is autocomplete, however the API is powerful and flexible enough to build things like dropdowns as well.

• Installation
• Usage
• Props
  • defaultSelectedItem
  • defaultHighlightedIndex
  • defaultInputValue
  • defaultIsOpen
  • itemToString
  • selectedItemChanged
  • getA11yStatusMessage
  • onChange
  • onSelect
  • onStateChange
  • stateReducer
  • onInputValueChange
  • itemCount
  • highlightedIndex
  • inputValue
  • isOpen
  • selectedItem
  • render
  • id
  • environment
  • onOuterClick
• stateChangeTypes
• Control Props
• Render Prop Function
  • prop getters
  • actions
  • state
  • props
• Event Handlers
  • default handlers
  • customizing handlers
• Utilities
  • resetIdCounter
• React Native
  • Gotchas
• Examples
• FAQ
• Upcoming Breaking Changes
• Inspiration
• Other Solutions
• Bindings for ReasonML
• Contributors
• LICENSE

This module is distributed via npm which is bundled with node and should be installed as one of your project's dependencies:

npm install --save downshift

This package also depends on react and prop-types. Please make sure you have those installed as well.

Note also this library supports preact out of the box. If you are using preact then use the corresponding module in the preact/dist folder. You can even import Downshift from 'downshift/preact' 👍

Try it out in the browser

import React from 'react'
import {render} from 'react-dom'
import Downshift from 'downshift'

const items = [
  {value: 'apple'},
  {value: 'pear'},
  {value: 'orange'},
  {value: 'grape'},
  {value: 'banana'},
]

render(
  <Downshift
    onChange={selection => alert(`You selected ${selection.value}`)}
    itemToString={item => (item ? item.value : '')}
  >
    {({
      getInputProps,
      getItemProps,
      getLabelProps,
      isOpen,
      inputValue,
      highlightedIndex,
      selectedItem,
    }) => (
      <div>
        <label {...getLabelProps()}>Enter a fruit</label>
        <input {...getInputProps()} />
        {isOpen ? (
          <div>
            {items
              .filter(item => !inputValue || item.value.includes(inputValue))
              .map((item, index) => (
                <div
                  {...getItemProps({
                    key: item.value,
                    index,
                    item,
                    style: {
                      backgroundColor:
                        highlightedIndex === index ? 'lightgray' : 'white',
                      fontWeight: selectedItem === item ? 'bold' : 'normal',
                    },
                  })}
                >
                  {item.value}
                </div>
              ))}
          </div>
        ) : null}
      </div>
    )}
  </Downshift>,
  document.getElementById('root'),
)

<Downshift /> is the only component. It doesn't render anything itself, it just calls the render function and renders that. "Use a render prop!"! <Downshift>{downshift => <div>/* your JSX here! */</div>}</Downshift>.

any | defaults to null

Pass an item or an array of items that should be selected by default.

number/null | defaults to null

This is the initial index to highlight when the menu first opens.

string | defaults to ''

This is the initial input value.

boolean | defaults to false

This is the initial isOpen value.

function(item: any) | defaults to: i => (i == null ? '' : String(i))

Used to determine the string value for the selected item (which is used to compute the inputValue).

function(prevItem: any, item: any) | defaults to: (prevItem, item) => (prevItem !== item)

Used to determine if the new selectedItem has changed compared to the previous selectedItem and properly update Downshift's internal state.

function({/* see below */}) | default messages provided in English

This function is passed as props to a Status component nested within and allows you to create your own assertive ARIA statuses.

A default getA11yStatusMessage function is provided that will check resultCount and return "No results." or if there are results but no item is highlighted, "resultCount results are available, use up and down arrow keys to navigate." If an item is highlighted it will run itemToString(highlightedItem) and display the value of the highlightedItem.

The object you are passed to generate your status message has the following properties:

function(selectedItem: any, stateAndHelpers: object) | optional, no useful default

Called when the user selects an item and the selected item has changed. Called with the item that was selected and the new state of downshift. (see onStateChange for more info on stateAndHelpers).

• selectedItem: The item that was just selected
• stateAndHelpers: This is the same thing your render prop function is called with (see Render Prop Function)

function(selectedItem: any, stateAndHelpers: object) | optional, no useful default

Called when the user selects an item, regardless of the previous selected item. Called with the item that was selected and the new state of downshift. (see onStateChange for more info on stateAndHelpers).

• selectedItem: The item that was just selected
• stateAndHelpers: This is the same thing your render prop function is called with (see Render Prop Function)

function(changes: object, stateAndHelpers: object) | optional, no useful default

This function is called anytime the internal state changes. This can be useful if you're using downshift as a "controlled" component, where you manage some or all of the state (e.g. isOpen, selectedItem, highlightedIndex, etc) and then pass it as props, rather than letting downshift control all its state itself. The parameters both take the shape of internal state ({highlightedIndex: number, inputValue: string, isOpen: boolean, selectedItem: any}) but differ slightly.

• changes: These are the properties that actually have changed since the last state change. This also has a type property which you can learn more about in the stateChangeTypes section.
• stateAndHelpers: This is the exact same thing your render prop function is called with (see Render Prop Function)

Tip: This function will be called any time any state is changed. The best way to determine whether any particular state was changed, you can use changes.hasOwnProperty('propName').

function(state: object, changes: object) | optional

🚨 This is a really handy power feature 🚨

This function will be called each time downshift sets its internal state (or calls your onStateChange handler for control props). It allows you to modify the state change that will take place which can give you fine grain control over how the component interacts with user updates without having to use Control Props. It gives you the current state and the state that will be set, and you return the state that you want to set.

• state: The full current state of downshift.
• changes: These are the properties that are about to change. This also has a type property which you can learn more about in the stateChangeTypes section.

const ui = (
  <Downshift stateReducer={stateReducer}>{/* your callback */}</Downshift>
)

function stateReducer(state, changes) {
  // this prevents the menu from being closed when the user
  // selects an item with a keyboard or mouse
  switch (changes.type) {
    case Downshift.stateChangeTypes.keyDownEnter:
    case Downshift.stateChangeTypes.clickItem:
      return {
        ...changes,
        isOpen: state.isOpen,
        highlightedIndex: state.highlightedIndex,
      }
    default:
      return changes
  }
}

function(inputValue: string, stateAndHelpers: object) | optional, no useful default

Called whenever the input value changes. Useful to use instead or in combination of onStateChange when inputValue is a controlled prop to avoid issues with cursor positions.

• inputValue: The current value of the input
• stateAndHelpers: This is the same thing your render prop function is called with (see Render Prop Function)

number | optional, defaults the number of times you call getItemProps

This is useful if you're using some kind of virtual listing component for "windowing" (like react-virtualized).

number | control prop (read more about this in the "Control Props" section below)

The index that should be highlighted

string | control prop (read more about this in the "Control Props" section below)

The value the input should have

boolean | control prop (read more about this in the "Control Props" section below)

Whether the menu should be considered open or closed. Some aspects of the downshift component respond differently based on this value (for example, if isOpen is true when the user hits "Enter" on the input field, then the item at the highlightedIndex item is selected).

any/Array(any) | control prop (read more about this in the "Control Props" section below)

The currently selected item.

function({}) | required

This is called with an object. Read more about the properties of this object in the section "Render Prop Function".

string | defaults to a generated ID

You should not normally need to set this prop. It's only useful if you're server rendering items (which each have an id prop generated based on the downshift id). For more information see the FAQ below.

window | defaults to window

You should not normally need to set this prop. It's only useful if you're rendering into a different window context from where your JavaScript is running, for example an iframe.

function(stateAndHelpers: object) | optional

A helper callback to help control internal state of downshift like isOpen as mentioned in this issue. The same behavior can be achieved using onStateChange, but this prop is provided as a helper because it's a fairly common use-case if you're controlling the isOpen state:

const ui = (
  <Downshift
    isOpen={this.state.menuIsOpen}
    onOuterClick={() => this.setState({menuIsOpen: false})}
  >
    {/* your callback */}
  </Downshift>
)

This callback will only be called if isOpen is true.

There are a few props that expose changes to state (onStateChange and stateReducer). For you to make the most of these APIs, it's important for you to understand why state is being changed. To accomplish this, there's a type property on the changes object you get. This type corresponds to a Downshift.stateChangeTypes property. If you want to see what change types are available, run this in your app:

console.log(Object.keys(Downshift.stateChangeTypes))

downshift manages its own state internally and calls your onChange and onStateChange handlers with any relevant changes. The state that downshift manages includes: isOpen, selectedItem, inputValue, and highlightedIndex. Your render prop function (read more below) can be used to manipulate this state from within the render function and can likely support many of your use cases.

However, if more control is needed, you can pass any of these pieces of state as a prop (as indicated above) and that state becomes controlled. As soon as this.props[statePropKey] !== undefined, internally, downshift will determine its state based on your prop's value rather than its own internal state. You will be required to keep the state up to date (this is where onStateChange comes in really handy), but you can also control the state from anywhere, be that state from other components, redux, react-router, or anywhere else.

Note: This is very similar to how normal controlled components work elsewhere in react (like <input />). If you want to learn more about this concept, you can learn about that from this the "Controlled Components" lecture and exercises from React Training's Advanced React course.

This is where you render whatever you want to based on the state of downshift. It's a regular prop called render: <Downshift render={/* right here*/} />.

You can also pass it as the children prop if you prefer to do things that way <Downshift>{/* right here*/}</Downshift>

The properties of this object can be split into three categories as indicated below:

See the blog post about prop getters

These functions are used to apply props to the elements that you render. This gives you maximum flexibility to render what, when, and wherever you like. You call these on the element in question (for example: <input {...getInputProps()})). It's advisable to pass all your props to that function rather than applying them on the element yourself to avoid your props being overridden (or overriding the props returned). For example: getInputProps({onKeyUp(event) {console.log(event)}}).

Most of the time, you can just render a div yourself and Downshift will apply the props it needs to do its job (and you don't need to call this function). However, if you're rendering a composite component (custom component) as the root element, then you'll need to call getRootProps and apply that to your root element.

Required properties:

• refKey: if you're rendering a composite component, that component will need to accept a prop which it forwards to the root DOM element. Commonly, folks call this innerRef. So you'd call: getRootProps({refKey: 'innerRef'}) and your composite component would forward like: <div ref={props.innerRef} />

If you're rendering a composite component, Downshift checks that getRootProps is called and that refKey is a prop of the returned composite component. This is done to catch common causes of errors but, in some cases, the check could fail even if the ref is correctly forwarded to the root DOM component. In these cases, you can provide the object {suppressRefError : true} as the second argument to getRootProps to completely bypass the check.
Please use it with extreme care and only if you are absolutely sure that the ref is correctly forwarded otherwise Downshift will unexpectedly fail.
See #235 for the discussion that lead to this.

This method should be applied to the input you render. It is recommended that you pass all props as an object to this method which will compose together any of the event handlers you need to apply to the input while preserving the ones that downshift needs to apply to make the input behave.

There are no required properties for this method.

Optional properties:

• disabled: If this is set to true, then no event handlers will be returned from getInputProps and a disabled prop will be returned (effectively disabling the input).

This method should be applied to the label you render. It is useful for ensuring that the for attribute on the <label> (htmlFor as a react prop) is the same as the id that appears on the input. If no htmlFor is provided then an ID will be generated and used for the input and the label for attribute.

There are no required properties for this method.

Note: You can definitely get by without using this (just provide an id to your input and the same htmlFor to your label and you'll be good with accessibility). However, we include this so you don't forget and it makes things a little nicer for you. You're welcome 😀

The props returned from calling this function should be applied to any menu items you render.

This is an impure function, so it should only be called when you will actually be applying the props to an item.

items.map(item => {
  const props = getItemProps({item}) // we're calling it here
  if (!shouldRenderItem(item)) {
    return null // but we're not using props, and downshift thinks we are...
  }
  return <div {...props} />
})

items.filter(shouldRenderItem).map(item => <div {...getItemProps({item})} />)

Required properties:

• item: this is the item data that will be selected when the user selects a particular item.

Optional properties:

• index: This is how downshift keeps track of your item when updating the highlightedIndex as the user keys around. By default, downshift will assume the index is the order in which you're calling getItemProps. This is often good enough, but if you find odd behavior, try setting this explicitly. It's probably best to be explicit about index when using a windowing library like react-virtualized.
• disabled: If this is set to true, then all of the downshift item event handlers will be omitted. Items will not be highlighted when hovered, and items will not be selected when clicked.

Call this and apply the returned props to a button. It allows you to toggle the Menu component. You can definitely build something like this yourself (all of the available APIs are exposed to you), but this is nice because it will also apply all of the proper ARIA attributes.

Optional properties:

• disabled: If this is set to true, then all of the downshift button event handlers will be omitted (it wont toggle the menu when clicked).
• aria-label: The aria-label prop is in English. You should probably override this yourself so you can provide translations:

const myButton = (
  <button
    {...getToggleButtonProps({
      'aria-label': translateWithId(isOpen ? 'close.menu' : 'open.menu'),
    })}
  />
)

These are functions you can call to change the state of the downshift component.

otherStateToSet refers to an object to set other internal state. It is recommended to avoid abusing this, but is available if you need it.

These are values that represent the current state of the downshift component.

As a convenience, the id and itemToString props which you pass to <Downshift /> are available here as well.

Downshift has a few events for which it provides implicit handlers. Several of these handlers call event.preventDefault(). Their additional functionality is described below.

• ArrowDown: moves the highlighted index down by 1. If this shift key is held when this event fires, the highlighted index will jump down 5 indices instead of 1. NOTE: if the current highlighed index is within the bottom 5 indices, the top-most index will be highlighted.)

• ArrowUp: moves the highlighted index up by 1. If this shift key is held when this event fires, the highlighted index will jump up 5 indices instead of 1. NOTE: if the current highlighed index is within the top 5 indices, the bottom-most index will be highlighted.)

• Enter: if the menu is open, select the currently highlighted item. If the menu is open, the usual 'Enter' event is prevented by Downshift's default implicit enter handler; so, for example, a form submission event will not work as one might expect (though if the menu is closed the form submission will work normally). See below for customizing the handlers.

• Escape: will reset downshift's state. This means that highlightedIndex will be set to the defaultHighlightedIndex, the inputValue will be set to the itemToString value of the selectedItem, and the isOpen state will be set to false.

You can provide your own event handlers to Downshift which will be called before the default handlers:

const ui = (
  <Downshift>
    {({getInputProps}) => (
      <input
        {...getInputProps({
          onKeyDown: event => {
            // your handler code
          },
        })}
      />
    )}
  </Downshift>
)

If you would like to prevent the default handler behavior in some cases, you can set the event's preventDownshiftDefault property to true:

const ui = (
  <Downshift>
    {({getInputProps}) => (
      <input
        {...getInputProps({
          onKeyDown: event => {
            if (event.key === 'Enter') {
              // Prevent Downshift's default 'Enter' behavior.
              event.preventDownshiftDefault = true

              // your handler code
            }
          },
        })}
      />
    )}
  </Downshift>
)

If you would like to completely override Downshift's behavior for a handler, in favor of your own, you can bypass prop getters:

const ui = (
  <Downshift>
    {({getInputProps}) => (
      <input
        {...getInputProps()}
        onKeyDown={event => {
          // your handler code
        }}
      />
    )}
  </Downshift>
)

Allows reseting the internal id counter which is used to generate unique ids for Downshift component.

You should never need to use this in the browser. Only if you are running an universal React app that is rendered on the server you should call resetIdCounter before every render so that the ids that get generated on the server match the ids generated in the browser.

import Downshift from 'downshift';

Downshift.resetIdCounter();
ReactDOMServer.renderToString(...);

Since Downshift renders it's UI using render props, Downshift supports rendering on React Native with ease. Use components like <View>, <Text>, <TouchableOpacity> and others inside of your render method to generate awesome autocomplete, dropdown, or selection components.

• Your root view will need to either pass a ref to getRootProps or call getRootProps with { suppressRefError: true }. This ref is used to catch a common set of errors around composite components. Learn more in getRootProps.
• When using a <FlatList> or <ScrollView>, be sure to supply the keyboardShouldPersistTaps prop to ensure that your text input stays focus, while allowing for taps on the touchables rendered for your items.

Examples exist on codesandbox.io:

• Bare bones autocomplete
• Multiple selection (uses controlled selectedItem API).
• Type Ahead Example (uses controlled selectedItem API).
• Integration with Apollo
• Integration with Redux
• Integration with react-instantsearch from Algolia
• Material-UI (1.0.0-beta.4) Combobox Using Downshift
• Material-UI (1.0.0-beta.33) Multiple select with autocomplete
• Integration with GenieJS (learn more about genie here)
• Handling and displaying errors
• Integration with React Router
• Windowing with react-tiny-virtual-list
• Section/option group example
• Integration with fuzzaldrin-plus (Fuzzy matching)
• Dropdown/select implementation with Bootstrap
• Multiple editable tag selection
• Downshift implemented as compound components and a Higher Order Component (exposes a withDownshift higher order component which you can use to get at the state, actions, prop getters in a rendered downshift tree).
• Downshift Spectre.css example
• Integration with redux-form
• Integration with react-final-form
• Provider Pattern - how to avoid prop-drilling if you like to break up your render method into more components
• React Native example
• React VR example

If you would like to add an example, follow these steps:

1. Fork this codesandbox
2. Make sure your version (under dependencies) is the latest available version.
3. Update the title and description
4. Update the code for your example (add some form of documentation to explain what it is)
5. Add the tag: downshift:example

You'll find other examples in the stories/examples folder of the repo. And you'll find a live version of those examples here

const ui = (
  <Downshift
    id="autocomplete"
    render={({getInputProps, getLabelProps}) => (
      <div>
        <label {...getLabelProps({htmlFor: 'autocomplete-input'})}>
          Some Label
        </label>
        <input {...getInputProps({id: 'autocomplete-input'})} />
      </div>
    )}
  />
)

We try to avoid breaking changes when possible and try to adhere to semver. Sometimes breaking changes are necessary and we'll make the transition as smooth as possible. This is why there's a prop available which will allow you to opt into breaking changes. It looks like this:

const ui = (
  <Downshift
    breakingChanges={
      {
        /* breaking change flags here */
      }
    }
    render={() => <div />}
  />
)

To opt-into a breaking change, simply provide the key and value in the breakingChanges object prop for each breaking change mentioned below:

1. resetInputOnSelection - Enable with the value of true. For more information, see #243

When a new major version is released, then the code to support the old functionality will be removed and the breaking change version will be the default, so it's suggested you enable these as soon as you are aware of them.

I was heavily inspired by Ryan Florence. Watch his (free) lesson about "Compound Components". Initially downshift was a group of compound components using context to communicate. But then Jared Forsyth suggested I expose functions (the prop getters) to get props to apply to the elements rendered. That bit of inspiration made a big impact on the flexibility and simplicity of this API.

I also took a few ideas from the code in react-autocomplete and jQuery UI's Autocomplete.

You can watch me build the first iteration of downshift on YouTube:

• Part 1
• Part 2

You'll find more recordings of me working on downshift on my livestream YouTube playlist.

You can implement these other solutions using downshift, but if you'd prefer to use these out of the box solutions, then that's fine too:

• react-select
• react-autocomplete

If you're developing some React in ReasonML, check out the Downshift bindings for that.

Thanks goes to these people (emoji key):

Kent C. Dodds 💻 📖 🚇 ⚠️ 👀 📝 🐛 💡 🤔 📢	Ryan Florence 🤔	Jared Forsyth 🤔 📖	Jack Moore 💡	Travis Arnold 💻 📖	Marcy Sutton 🐛 🤔	Jeremy Gayed 💡
Haroen Viaene 💡	monssef 💡	Federico Zivolo 📖	Divyendu Singh 💡 💻 📖 ⚠️	Muhammad Salman 💻	João Alberto 💻	Bernard Lin 💻 📖
Geoff Davis 💡	Anup 📖	Ferdinand Salis 🐛 💻	Kye Hohenberger 🐛	Julien Goux 🐛 💻 ⚠️	Joachim Seminck 💻	Jesse Harlin 🐛 💡
Matt Parrish 🔧 👀	thom 💻	Vu Tran 💻	Codie Mullins 💻 💡	Mohammad Rajabifard 📖 🤔	Frank Tan 💻	Kier Borromeo 💡
Paul Veevers 💻	Ron Cruz 📖	Rick McGavin 📖	Jelle Versele 💡	Brent Ertz 🤔	Justice Mba 💻 📖 🤔	Mark Ellis 🤔
us͡an̸df͘rien͜ds͠ 🐛 💻 ⚠️	Robin Drexler 🐛 💻	Arturo Romero 💡	yp 🐛 💻 ⚠️	Dave Garwacke 📖	Ivan Pazhitnykh 💻 ⚠️	Luis Merino 📖
Andrew Hansen 💻 ⚠️ 🤔	John Whiles 💻	Justin Hall 🚇	Pete Nykänen 👀	Jared Palmer 💻	Philip Young 💻 ⚠️ 🤔	Alexander Nanberg 📖
Pete Redmond 🐛	Nick Lavin 🐛 💻 ⚠️	James Long 🐛 💻	Michael Ball 🐛 💻	CAVALEIRO Julien 💡	Kim Grönqvist 💻 ⚠️	Sijie 🐛 💻
Dony Sukardi 💡 💬 💻 ⚠️	Dillon Mulroy 📖	Curtis Tate Wilkinson 💻	Brice BERNARD 🐛 💻	Tony Xu 💻	Anthony Ng 📖	S S 💬 💻 📖 🤔 ⚠️
Austin Tackaberry 💬 💻 📖 🐛 💡 🤔 👀 ⚠️	Jean Duthon 🐛 💻	Anton Telesh 🐛 💻	Eric Edem 💻 📖 🤔 ⚠️	Austin Wood 💬 📖 👀	Mark Murray 🚇	Gianmarco 🐛 💻
Emmanuel Pastor 💡	dalehurwitz 💻	Bogdan Lobor 🐛 💻	Luke Herrington 💡	Brandon Clemons 💻	Kieran 💻	Brushedoctopus 🐛 💻

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

MIT