How can I shift-select multiple checkboxes like GMail?

I wrote a self-contained demo that uses jquery:

$(document).ready(function() {
    var $chkboxes = $('.chkbox');
    var lastChecked = null;

    $chkboxes.click(function(e) {
        if (!lastChecked) {
            lastChecked = this;
            return;
        }

        if (e.shiftKey) {
            var start = $chkboxes.index(this);
            var end = $chkboxes.index(lastChecked);

            $chkboxes.slice(Math.min(start,end), Math.max(start,end)+ 1).prop('checked', lastChecked.checked);
        }

        lastChecked = this;
    });
});
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <input type="checkbox" id="id_chk1" class="chkbox" value="1" />Check 1<br/>
    <input type="checkbox" id="id_chk2" class="chkbox" value="2" />Check 2<br/>
    <input type="checkbox" id="id_chk3" class="chkbox" value="3" />Check 3<br/>
    <input type="checkbox" id="id_chk4" class="chkbox" value="4" />Check 4<br/>
    <input type="checkbox" id="id_chk5" class="chkbox" value="5" />Check 5<br/>
    <input type="checkbox" id="id_chk6" class="chkbox" value="6" />Check 6<br/>
    <input type="checkbox" id="id_chk7" class="chkbox" value="7" />Check 7<br/>
</body>
</html>

Recently, I wrote a jQuery plugin that provide that feature and more.

After including the plugin you just need to initialize the context of checkboxes with the following code snippet:

$('#table4').checkboxes({ range: true });

Here is the link to the documentation, demo & download: http://rmariuzzo.github.io/checkboxes.js/


This is done through fairly simple javascript.

They keep track of the id of the last checked box and when when another checkbox is checked they use the shiftKey event attribute to see if shift was held while clicking the checkbox. If so they set the checked property of each checkbox in between the two to true.

To determine when a box is checked they probably use an onclick event on the checkboxes


It seems like every answer I can find online is completely dependent on jQuery for this. JQuery adds very little functionality. Here's a quick version that doesn't require any frameworks:

function allow_group_select_checkboxes(checkbox_wrapper_id){
    var lastChecked = null;
    var checkboxes = document.querySelectorAll('#'+checkbox_wrapper_id+' input[type="checkbox"]');

    //I'm attaching an index attribute because it's easy, but you could do this other ways...
    for (var i=0;i<checkboxes.length;i++){
        checkboxes[i].setAttribute('data-index',i);
    }

    for (var i=0;i<checkboxes.length;i++){
        checkboxes[i].addEventListener("click",function(e){

            if(lastChecked && e.shiftKey) {
                var i = parseInt(lastChecked.getAttribute('data-index'));
                var j = parseInt(this.getAttribute('data-index'));
                var check_or_uncheck = this.checked;

                var low = i; var high=j;
                if (i>j){
                    var low = j; var high=i; 
                }

                for(var c=0;c<checkboxes.length;c++){
                    if (low <= c && c <=high){
                        checkboxes[c].checked = check_or_uncheck;
                    }   
                }
            } 
            lastChecked = this;
        });
    }
}

And then initialize it whenever you need it:

allow_group_select_checkboxes('[id of a wrapper that contains the checkboxes]')

Tags:

Javascript

Gmail

Recent Posts