I'm using the Dropdown Tags component in OutSystems. The component requires a DropdownOption structure with the following fields:
I need to use the Description field because I'm using custom JavaScript to display it as a tooltip when users hover over an option or a selected tag.
The problem is that the built-in search also searches the Description field. For example:
Typing "12kVA" or "Diesel" will also return this item, while I only want the search to match the Label (Honda).
I've checked the available properties (including SearchNormalize), but it only controls diacritics and doesn't prevent searching in the Description.
Is there any supported way to:
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
In OutSystems Dropdown Tags, there is no built-in property to limit search only to Label while keeping Description available. The component’s internal search indexes multiple fields from DropdownOption, including Description.
Without modifying the component source, your options are limited:
Workaround: Keep Description empty in the DropdownOption and store tooltip text separately (for example, in a client-side structure keyed by Value), then display it through your custom JS.
Pre-filter the options: Handle your own search logic and pass only matching Label results to the dropdown (if your use case allows it).
Extend/fork the component: If you need the native search behavior changed, modifying the component logic to search only Label is the cleanest technical solution.
SearchNormalize only affects text normalization (such as accents/diacritics); it does not control which fields are searched.
Hi @Le Quang Trieu,
I don't think there's a supported way to achieve this without modifying the component itself. The search behavior is built into the OutSystemsUI implementation and isn't exposed as a configurable property.
What I'd recommend is cloning the Dropdown Tags pattern into your own module (for example, YourApp_Pat) and adjusting the search logic there for your specific scenario. This gives you full control over how the search behaves.
What you can do is simply remove the Description field instead of storing the tooltip text in it (after copying it to your _Pat module).
Doing so would also allow you to remove the extra attribute you added to the built-in structure. As you can see in the first screenshot, the entire value is serialized. From what I know, removing the Description field shouldn't have any significant impact if it isn't being used elsewhere, since the selected values are still identified by their underlying keys rather than the description itself.
So, in short, all you're really doing is removing the Description value, which was only being used to display the tooltip. You can then handle the tooltip externally instead of relying on the built-in Description field.
In the second screenshot, you could remove the built-in Description altogether and create your own custom attribute specifically for the tooltip. Since this new attribute is separate from the built-in structure used by the search component, it won't be included in the search logic.