The select dialog enables users to select one or more items from a comprehensive list. The select dialog comes with a list of entries and a search field to filter the list.

A more enhanced dialog for single selection and multiselection is the value help dialog as it offers range selection and excluding functions.

Usage

Use the select dialog if:

• Users need to select one or more entries from a comprehensive list that contains multiple attributes or values.

Do not use the select dialog if:

• Users need to pick one item from a predefined set of options that contains one attribute or value only such as languages. In this case, consider using the combo box or select instead.
• Your use case requires more enhanced functionalities such as a selection based on ranges. For the selection of values, consider using the value help dialog instead.
• Your use case requires tabs, filters, or an Add New functionality in the select dialog. In this case, use a standard dialog instead.

Responsiveness

The display of the select control depends on the device. On phones, the selection list takes up the whole screen. On desktop and tablet devices it appears as a popover.

Size S

Size M

Size L

Components

Dialog Header

You need to set the title of the dialog header (1). We recommend the following form:

Single selection

Select <Entity>

Example: Select Product

Multi-selection

Select <Entities>

Example: Select Products

Search

The first element in the dialog is a standard search field (2).

Info Toolbar

The info toolbar (3) is only available in multi-selection mode. It shows the number of selected items in the following form:

Selected <Entities>: <Number>

Example: Selected Products: 2

Content

The content area (4) can be filled with any list content inherited from the list item base, such as standard list items, display list items, and feed list items. You can set the content to be displayed as grouped.

Button Toolbar

The button toolbar (5) contains two buttons: OK and Cancel. OK takes over the selection, while Cancel resets the selection to the state it was in when the dialog was opened. Do not use Add or Select instead of OK.

Behavior and Interaction

The select dialog can be called up from any control. The most common trigger is an input field with selection icon, also known as a “value help field”, or F4. Alternative triggers are buttons or icons, which add items to an existing list or the info bar in the master list in order to apply a contextual filter.

Single Select

Once users select an entry, the select dialog is closed and the selected entry is taken over. If applicable, the entry is displayed in the field from which the dialog was triggered.

Multi-Select

In the multi-select version of the select dialog, checkboxes are provided for choosing multiple entries. The selection is taken over when the user closes the dialog via OK. Cancel closes the dialog without taking over the selected values. An infobar indicates the number of selected items.

Search

The user can search items.

Guidelines

Search Behavior

There are two types of search behaviors available:

(1) A live search, also known as “search-as-you-type” (property: liveChange), which is triggered by each character that the user enters or deletes.

(2) A manual search, which is triggered explicitly after the user enters text in the search field and clicks or taps the Search icon or presses the Enter key.

App developers need to decide which search to use. We recommend implementing the live search whenever possible. Use the manual search only if the amount of data is too large and your app would otherwise run into performance issues. For more information, check out the article on searching.

Remembering Selections

If your use case requires the memorization of selections in a dialog in order to allow for corrections, you can set the rememberSelections function in the select dialog to true. When users exit the dialog with cancel, the selection is restored to the state when the dialog was opened.

By default, the selection is reset once the dialog is closed. This allows a new selection when opening the dialog again. As an example, this functionality makes sense when users need to add multiple items to a table.

Resources

Want to dive deeper? Follow the links below to find out more about related controls, the SAPUI5 implementation, and the visual design.