I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. Bubble’s native dropdown really lacks features when it comes to design and UX. I can’t change the hover state of the list, the padding, or anything inside it. When the dropdown can be empty, the first item in the list shows up as blank, and we need to use CSS or other workarounds to fix it.
I’ve already created some custom dropdowns using containers and actions, but I’m curious: is there any smart way you all here on the forum are building dropdowns without using plugins? I’d love to hear how you’re handling this element.
No, in fact I’m building a plugin to replace most input elements because it’s time for those things to be better, especially in age of AI assistance (not bubble AI, just any LLM) for quick styling.
When I say ‘input elements’ I mean all input element types, not just the input element, so it includes things like checkbox, dropdowns etc., all of the elements under the label in editor of ‘input’ forms’.
For example, I just did the checkbox and added a lot of events, extra field settings and actions…one simple idea, if I have a set of options, and I want to make one of them not available (so disabled checkbox) and I show all 7 in a repeating group, I can set conditionally which option is disabled and have that be visually represented to the user, as well as have that checkbox be skipped in tabbing. I added ability to get best practices for UX/UI and accessibility. Adding in the ability to determine if the checkbox was changed via a user action or a state change (like database change), which can help my clients capture more data points (data is valuable - and in Bubble, it doesn’t necessarily need to be expensive)…plus some other goodies that I want for the products I build and how I want to be building them in coming 18-24 months.
Ultimately, it is about making building better apps in bubble, from UX, UI and accessibility standpoint, and for me as the developer, faster.
native html select element is in a really great state right now, but bubble implementing it is not a simple task due to platform structure. if you’re not happy with group focus and plugins, maybe try to implement it with custom code and some js? i dunno but it would be great to have these existing native features in bubble.
