Select Advanced

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Overview

The select advanced field creates a beautiful select dropdown using the select2 library.

Screenshot

Settings

Besides the common settings, this field has the following specific settings:

Name	Description
options	Array of 'value' => 'Label' pairs. They’re used to display choices. value is stored in the custom field. Required.
multiple	Whether to allow select multiple values? true or false (default).
placeholder	The placeholder text.
select_all_none	Display “Select All / None” button to fast toggle choices. Applied only when multiple is true.
js_options	Array of options for select2 library. See here.

By default, Meta Box applies these default options for js_options:

Name	Value	Description
allowClear	true	Allow users to clear selection.
width	resolve	Set width by element’s width.
placeholder	$field['placeholder']	Make placeholder works just like select field.

Sample code

array(
    'name'            => 'Select Advanced',
    'id'              => 'select_advanced',
    'type'            => 'select_advanced',
    // Array of 'value' => 'Label' pairs
    'options'         => array(
        'java'       => 'Java',
        'javascript' => 'JavaScript',
        'php'        => 'PHP',
        'csharp'     => 'C#',
        'objectivec' => 'Objective-C',
        'kotlin'     => 'Kotlin',
        'swift'      => 'Swift',
    ),
    // Allow to select multiple value?
    'multiple'        => false,
    // Placeholder text
    'placeholder'     => 'Select an Item',
    // Display "Select All / None" button?
    'select_all_none' => false,
    // select2 configuration. See https://select2.org/configuration
    'js_options'      => array(
        'containerCssClass' => 'my-custom-class',
    ),
),

Data

If multiple is false, this field simply saves the selected value in the database. The value saved is the value in the options array (not label).

If multiple is true, this field saves multiple values in the database, where ech value is store in a single row in the database with the same meta key (similar to what add_post_meta does with last parameter false).

If the field is cloneable, then the value is stored as a serialized array in a single row in the database.

Template usage

If field is not multiple:

$value = rwmb_meta( $field_id );
echo $value;

If field is either multiple or cloneable:

$values = rwmb_meta( $field_id );
foreach ( $values as $value ) {
    echo $value;
}

If field is both multiple and cloneable:

$values = rwmb_meta( $field_id );
foreach ( $values as $clone ) {
    foreach ( $clone as $value ) {
        echo $value;
    }
}

The function rwmb_meta() only returns the value of the field, e.g. the key in the options array. To display the field label, use this code:

rwmb_the_value( $field_id );

Depends on the value is a single value or an array (multiple or cloneable or both), this function outputs a simple string or an unordered list.

Read more about rwmb_meta() and rwmb_the_value().