Searching through international characters with Chosen.js

Question

Has anyone found a fix for searching through international characters using chosen.js?

for example if I have a multi-select field with the following options: - A French Château - An English Chateau

And I search for "Cha"

Only the english will show up.

Answer 1

I don't know, if it is not too late for answering, but it could help someone else probably.

The point is to strip diacritics from entered string and from matched option string during comparison. My modification is working with jquery Chosen plugin in version 1.1.0, downloaded from github.

First you have to have a function to strip diacritics (i've added it after winnow_results())

// strip czech diacritics from string
AbstractChosen.prototype.strip_diacritics= function(string) {
  var 
    translationTable= [
      // input with diacritics - add your characters if necessary
      "éěÉĚřŘťŤžŽúÚůŮüÜíÍóÓáÁšŠďĎýÝčČňŇäÄĺĹľĽŕŔöÖ",
      // stripped output
      "eeEErRtTzZuUuUuUiIoOaAsSdDyYcCnNaAlLlLrRoO",
    ],
    output= '';

  // scan through whole string
  for (var i= 0; i < string.length; i++) {
    var charPosition= translationTable[0].indexOf(string[i]);
    output+= charPosition == -1 ? string[i] : translationTable[1][charPosition];
  }

  return output;
}

Then use it in appropriate places in winnow_results() function. Referencing chosen.jquery.js lines:

line #315

searchText = this.get_search_text();
// replace with
searchText = this.strip_diacritics(this.get_search_text());

line #339

option.search_match = this.search_string_match(option.search_text, regex);
// replace with
option.search_match = this.search_string_match(this.strip_diacritics(option.search_text), regex);

and finally line #345

startpos = option.search_text.search(zregex);
// replace with
startpos = this.strip_diacritics(option.search_text).search(zregex);

And you're done :-).

(I feel like writing some "savegame byte replacement" instruction for extra lives in old DOS game)

Whole modified file at pastebin.

Sept 29th, 2016: Modifications made in Chosen 1.6.2, tested ok.