Selecting multiple entries in an entries field is time consuming

[JayBox325]

I have a network of articles with an extensive tagging system with potentially hundreds, if not thousands of tags as the platform grows, so presenting the list of available tags and expecting the author to find the one they want is gonna be a poor AX, so adding these tags will be heavily relying on the search functionality.

But the first problem I've encountered is that when I try to add multiple tags, I go through this process:

• Type to search for a tag
• Find the tag I want and select it
• Type to search for another tag
• Find the tag I want and select it
• Click "select" to confirm my choices

However, I notice that only the last selection I made has been saved and once I engage the searchbar again, any previous tags found are now no longer toggled to be selected. See here:

Screen.Recording.2025-02-23.at.21.34.40.mov

I've noticed this forces the author to go through this process of finding one, selecting it, then going back into the entry select window instead, which will make the job of tagging articles a point of friction:

Screen.Recording.2025-02-23.at.21.25.53.mov

I love the original tags functionality, but as tags are going to be removed at some point and the Ether plugin for maintaining a lot of tags in a CMS is dead, it would quickly become a mess of duplicates and tags with typos.

EDIT: potential duplicate #13174

[JayBox325]

Is there any thoughts on how I can improve this in the meantime? Some of our authors have complained about this being a point of friction for them. Thanks!

[brandonkelly]

Craft 5.8 introduced inline search for Entries fields (which it looks like your “Tags” field actually is?), which drastically speeds up the workflow for selecting existing entries. (#17497)

[JayBox325]

Hi @brandonkelly, I've got this updated and it appears this search field doesn't work for fields that allow more than one entry type?

This is the only difference between the Tags field and the other two.

[JayBox325]

Further to this, can the search field be closest match? So the author doesn't need to type out the entire string spelled 100% correctly?

This will make this field much more dynamic.

[brandonkelly]

It’s expected that the search input is only visible for fields with a single source selected – see #12721 (reply in thread).

Further to this, can the search field be closest match? So the author doesn't need to type out the entire string spelled 100% correctly?

Not able to reproduce that. Any chance you can send your Composer files and database dump into support@craftcms.com so we can try to reproduce with your site?

[JayBox325]

Hi @brandonkelly, ok, thanks for that. It's a shame, but I'll talk to the guys about splitting our tag selections up into different fields for now. I've sent my DB and the composer files. Ta.

[brandonkelly]

Thanks for providing those files! This turned out to be an issue specific to Postgres installs. Craft 4.16.9 and 5.8.13 are out with a fix.