Taxonomy term select by foreign characters

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback! I ran some tests, and it looks like that’s the default behavior of the Select2 library (which is used by ACF & ACF Extended).

Here is a video example with a native ACF Select field, with stylized UI enabled (Select2) and the following choices: Malo, Malö: https://i.imgur.com/rjR5mAL.mp4

The letter “o” matches “o” and “ö”, and vice versa. Select2 can be probably tweaked to find the exact matching term/character, maybe you should dig around on Stackoverflow or Github. To be honest I don’t have much time right now do it myself, ACF Extended is already improving/enhancing WordPress and ACF, that’s already a lot of work to keep everything compatible. I’m not sure that ACF Extended should also improve external libraries like Select2 JS, which would require additional maintenance.

A perfect match could also potentially break other stuff or features (Select2 is used in many places in ACF), so I’m not really sure that it should be added in ACF Extended. If you find a solution just let me know tho, I’ll gladly take a look.

Hope it helps!

Regards.

Hello,

This is due to the fact that the ACF Taxonomy field use “Ajax to lazy load choices” setting as builtin setting. If you enable this setting in the ACF Select field or in the ACF Extended Taxonomy Terms field, it will correctly match the special character (I had to use utf8mb4_swedish_ci collation in the DB).

See video: https://i.imgur.com/eX6QZsU.mp4

The Ajax method use PHP to match the search request (which use strict === comparison). When disabled, Select2 is using its native JS method to match the search request, which looks like to not be strict.

Hope it helps!

have a nice day.

Regards.

Hello,

I don’t understand the problem. Can you please provide context or screenshots? The lazy load choices use the native ACF way to load choices using Ajax.

Regards.

Hello,

In the “With Ajax” screenshot there isn’t any search request, so it’s hard to understand what you want to achieve by comparing with the “Without ajax” screenshot.

The ACF Taxonomy field results are probably the same as both ACF Taxonomy & ACFE Taxonomy Terms use the same method to find terms, using the search argument in the WP_Term_Query. See documentation.

The results aren’t ordered by hierarchy, but by relevance returned by the WP Query.

Regards.

Hello,

Okay I see the difference now. Like I explained, this is due to the WP_Term_Query results which are ordered by revelance by default.

When disabling the Ajax Lazy Load, the Select2 JS is simply filtering the list which is already loaded in the page, using the default order (by terms hierarchy). This is why Saab 30 result is returned first, because it is already loaded higher than its childs.

If you use the ACF Taxonomy field, there is a way to get a similar search results, using the following hook:

add_filter('acf/fields/taxonomy/query/name=my_taxonomy_field', 'my_taxonomy_query', 10, 3);
function my_taxonomy_query($args, $field, $post_id){
    
    $args['orderby'] = 'parent';
    
    return $args;
    
}

This filter is used to change the arguments right before it is sent to WP_Term_Query and tells to order results by terms parent.

Video of the result: https://i.imgur.com/4DQA2cj.mp4

Unfortunately there is no such hook for the ACFE Taxonomy Terms field right now, but I’ll definitely add it in the next patch!

Added to the Trello Board: https://trello.com/c/PDZq0LAy/403-taxonomy-terms-add-hooks-to-filter-wptermquery-arguments-terms-result-title

Regards.

Hello,

I understand. Doing a SQL search while keeping the hierarchical order would be too complicated to achieve using one WP_Term_Query. A workaround would be to make a custom query inside that hook (before ACF makes its own query), list all terms, re-order it hierarchically, search within term names, and force the new WP_Term_Query to use our filtered list with the include argument.

Here is a code example:

add_filter('acf/fields/taxonomy/query/name=my_taxonomy_field', 'my_taxonomy_query', 10, 3);
function my_taxonomy_query($args, $field, $post_id){
    
    // Bail early if not a search requrest
    if(!isset($args['search']))
        return $args;
        
    // Clone args
    $_args = $args;
    
    // Remove search from clone
    unset($_args['search']);
    
    // Query (retrieve all terms)
    $terms = acf_get_terms($_args);
    
    // Nothing found
    if(empty($terms))
        return $args;
    
    // Re-order all terms hierarchically
    $ordered_terms = _get_term_children(0, $terms, $field['taxonomy']);
    
    if(!empty($ordered_terms))
        $terms = $ordered_terms;
    
    // Loop in terms
    foreach($terms as $key => $term){
        
        // Search within terms names
        if(stripos($term->name, $args['search']) !== false)
            continue;
        
        // Does not match the search request. Delete
        unset($terms[$key]);
        
    }
    
    // Bail early if nothing matched the search request
    if(empty($terms))
        return $args;
    
    // Filter the list to retrieve only term ids
    $list = wp_list_pluck($terms, 'term_id');
    
    // Force the new query to use our filtered list
    $args['include'] = $list;
    
    // Force the new query to use our order of inclusion
    $args['orderby'] = 'include';
    
    // Remove search argument from the new query (it's already filtered)
    unset($args['search']);
    
    // return
    return $args;
    
}

Video result: https://i.imgur.com/FTWaY4W.mp4

It looks like that’s what you’re trying to achieve. If that doesn’t do the job, I will have to let you do your own research. I don’t have much time for more custom development, and the topic is sliding into general WordPress development questions & Terms Queries support.

Hope it helps!

Regards.

Hello,

I’m glad to hear it now works as you wanted.

If you enjoy this plugin and the support, feel free to submit a review, it always helps and it’s much appreciated 🙂

Have a nice day!

Regards.