Intent to Prototype: Customizable combobox

[Chromestatus]

Contact emails

jar...@chromium.org

Explainer

https://open-ui.org/components/combobox.explainer

Specification

No information provided

Summary

appearance:base for the <datalist> element when it is invoked as a picker from an <input type=text> element. https://open-ui.org/components/combobox.explainer/

Blink component

Blink>Forms

Web Feature ID

Missing feature

Motivation

The existing <input type=text list=datalist> HTML form element is not sufficient for web developers due to lack of supported content and customization. As a result, web developers must build their own which creates usability and accessibility risks.

Initial public proposal

https://github.com/openui/open-ui/issues/924

Requires code in //chrome?

False

Tracking bug

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/453705243

Estimated milestones

No milestones specified

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5067156794507264?gate=6032681792045056

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

[Thomas Steiner]

This is very exciting! Is this meant to work as well with dynamically fetched options, similar to the UK design system's source property for their accessible autocomplete component? So essentially the question is if there are too many options to list them statically in the HTML, is this approach supposed to work with dynamically generated options? 

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Thomas Steiner, PhD—Developer Relations Engineer (blog.tomayac.com, toot.cafe/@tomayac)

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[PhistucK]

Huh, I wonder why I did not get the original e-mail you replied to...

☆PhistucK

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CALgRrL%3Dh7Z1vrJj%2B85OH_K5k710eXx-bw9ArCiMnZarVSaju9g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Joey Arhar]

> is this approach supposed to work with dynamically generated options?

Yes, a use case we have in mind for that with more detail here: https://github.com/openui/open-ui/issues/847#issuecomment-3461203364

> Huh, I wonder why I did not get the original e-mail you replied to...

 

I sent this email by pressing a button in chromestatus rather than emailing it myself like I normally would, I bet that has something to do with it.

[Thomas Steiner]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 5:51 PM Joey Arhar <jar...@chromium.org> wrote:

> is this approach supposed to work with dynamically generated options?

Yes, a use case we have in mind for that with more detail here: https://github.com/openui/open-ui/issues/847#issuecomment-3461203364

Great, thanks for confirming making the combobox dynamically populated and searchable based on network requests is on the list :-) A concrete use case would be something like implementing a search feature for an online storage service (think building your own Google Drive API powered interface to Google Drive for example).