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Switch

The Switch is a two value control. It is like a physical toggle switch, it has an on and an off state that is represented as a boolean value.

Basic usage

The following example will create a simple switch with a label.

HTML
<label>
    <input type="checkbox" mbsc-switch data-label="The label of the switch" />
</label>

For being more informative a description and a color can also be passed to the switch.

HTML
<!-- Label and description for more info -->
<label>
    <input type="checkbox" mbsc-switch data-label="Front door" data-description="Controls the lock of the front door." />
</label>

<!-- Different color switches -->
<label>
    <input type="checkbox" mbsc-switch data-color="danger" data-label="Sync on mobile data" />
</label>
<label>
    <input type="checkbox" mbsc-switch color="info" label="Email notification" />
</label>

Auto initialization

If the component is added later to the DOM, e.g. with an Ajax page load, a custom function named enhance needs to be called in order to initialize the dynamically added component. When the enhance function is called on a DOM element, all form elements will be initialized inside this element.

$.get('/myform', function (responseHtml) {
    var $page = $('#page');
    $page.html(responseHtml);
    mobiscroll.enhance($page[0]);
});

Passing options

All the options can be passed to the switch via data- attributes with two exceptions. The exceptions are the checked and the disabled attributes, that don't need the data- prefix, since the native input supports them.

For example, when passing the rtl and the disabled options:

HTML
<label>
    <input type="checkbox" mbsc-switch data-rtl="true" disabled data-label="This is Disabled" />
</label>

Switching programmatically

Getting and setting the checked state of the switch can be done through the switch instance. For example:

HTML
<label>
    <input id="my-checked-switch" type="checkbox" checked mbsc-switch data-label="Initially cheked" />
</label>
JS
// get the input element, the switch was initialized on
const inputElement = $('#my-checked-switch')[0];
// get the instance of the switch component
const switchInstance = mobiscroll.getInst(inputElement);

const checkedState = switchInstance.checked; // get the switch on/off state as a boolean value
switchInstance.checked = false; // will turn the switch off

Disabled state

The underlying checkbox disabled property will be taken into account at initialization time. For example:

<!-- This will create a disabled switch -->
<label>
    <input type="checkbox" checked disabled mbsc-switch data-label="Initially cheked and disabled" />
</label>

<!-- The following will not be disabled -->
<label>
    <input type="checkbox" checked mbsc-switch data-label="Initially cheked and not disabled" />
</label>

Changing options dynamically

The settings of the switch can be changed dynamically using the setOptions method on the instance itself, or the setOptions method of the mobiscroll object.
Here is an example on how to change the disabled setting on a single switch:

HTML
<label>
    <input id="my-switch" type="checkbox" disabled mbsc-switch data-label="My Switch" />
</label>
JS
// get the input element, the switch was initialized on
const inputElement = $('#my-switch')[0];
// get the instance of the switch component
const switchInstance = mobiscroll.getInst(inputElement);

// set the disabled setting to false
switchInstance.setOptions({ disabled: false });

For many more examples - simple and complex use-cases - check out the switch demos for jquery.

Options

Name Data attribute Type Default value Description
checked data-checked Boolean undefined Sets the on/off state of the switch.
color data-color String undefined A predefined color to style the component.
Supported values are:
  • primary
  • secondary
  • success
  • danger
  • warning
  • info
  • dark
  • light
description data-description String undefined A description that shows up under the label of the component.
disabled data-disabled Boolean false Initial disabled state of the component. This will take no effect in inline display mode.
label data-label String undefined Sets the label of component.
position data-position String 'end' Sets the position of the switch handle depending on the RTL setting. It can be 'start' or 'end'.
When in LTR mode, the 'start' will set the handle position to the left (a.k.a. from left to right the switch will start with the handle) and the 'end' will set it to the right - so the handle goes to the end of the switch.
In RTL mode, the 'start' will position the hande to the right. The 'end' will position the handle to the left in this case.
rtl data-rtl Boolean false Right to left display.
theme data-theme String undefined

Sets the visual appearance of the component.

If it is 'auto' or undefined, the theme will automatically be chosen based on the platform. If custom themes are also present, they will take precedence over the built in themes, e.g. if there's an iOS based custom theme, it will be chosen on the iOS platform instead of the default iOS theme.

Supplied themes:
  • 'ios' - iOS theme
  • 'material' - Material theme
  • 'windows' - Windows theme
It's possible to modify theme colors or create custom themes.
Make sure that the theme you set is included in the downloaded package.
themeVariant data-theme-variant String undefined

Controls which variant of the theme will be used (light or dark).

Possible values:
  • 'light' - Use the light variant of the theme.
  • 'dark' - Use the dark variant of the theme.
  • 'auto' or undefined - Detect the preferred system theme on devices where this is supported.

To use the option with custom themes, make sure to create two custom themes, where the dark version has the same name as the light one, suffixed with '-dark', e.g.: 'my-theme' and 'my-theme-dark'.

Customizing the appearance

While the provided pre-built themes are enough in many use cases, most of the times on top of adapting to a specific platform, you'd also like to match a brand or color scheme. Mobiscroll provides various ways to achieve this:

Override the Sass Color Variables

A convenient way to customize the colors of the Mobiscroll components is to override the Sass color variables.

Let's say your branding uses a nice red accent color, and you'd like that color to appear on the Mobiscroll components as well, while still using platform specific themes (e.g. ios on iOS devices, material on Android devices, and mobiscroll on desktop). You can override the accent color for every theme:

$mbsc-ios-accent: #e61d2a;
$mbsc-material-accent: #e61d2a;
$mbsc-mobiscroll-accent: #e61d2a;

@import "~@mobiscroll/JQuery/dist/css/mobiscroll.jquery.scss"
It's important that you override the variables BEFORE the scss file import, otherwise it won't make any difference.
Here's a complete guide on how to set up Mobiscroll with SASS support

You can also customize the colors on many levels:

  1. Theme specific variables (ex. $mbsc-material-background, $mbsc-ios-dark-text) are applied to all components in a theme. Complete list of variables here.
  2. Component specific global variables (ex. $mbsc-card-background-light, $mbsc-listview-text-dark) are applied to all themes for a specific component.
  3. Component and theme specific variables (ex. $mbsc-ios-dark-form-background, $mbsc-material-input-text) are applied to a specific theme and a specific component.

Tree Shaking for styles

Tree shaking is a term commonly used in web development and particularly in JavaScript for unused code removal. Since websites are served (mostly) over the network, loading times depend on content size, so minification and unused content elimination plays a major role in making webapps fluid.

For the JavaScript part, popular frameworks already have the treeshaking built in, so the components that are not used will be left out from the built project.

Eliminating unused styles

In case of the styles, leaving out the unused rules is not as straight forward.
The overarching idea is that CSS selectors match elements in the DOM, and those elements in the DOM come from all sorts of places: your static templates, dynamic templates based on server-side state, and of course, JavaScript, which can manipulate the DOM in any way at all, including pull things from APIs and third parties.

Sass variables to the rescue

The Mobiscroll Library comes with a modular SASS bundle, that can be configured which component styles and which themes to leave in and out for the compiled css file.

Every component and theme has a SASS variable that can be turned on or off. If the variable is falsy the styles that it needs will not be added to the bundle.

Example on configuring the styles
// include the ios theme
$mbsc-ios-theme: true;

// include the components:
$mbsc-datepicker: true;
$mbsc-eventcalendar: true;
        
@import "@mobiscroll/jquery/dist/css/mobiscroll.modular.scss"

In the above example the styles needed for the eventcalendar and datepicker will be included and only for the ios theme. All other components (like select or grid-layout) and all other themes will be left out from the bundle.

It's important that you override the variables BEFORE the scss file import, otherwise it won't make any difference.

Here's the complete list of the components and themes that can be used:

Some components use others internally, so it might happen that even though you don't want to include some styles, they will still end up in your bundle.
For example if you don't want to include the form components (input, button, segmented, etc...), but you are using the select component, the styles for the mobiscroll buttons, will still be in, because of the dependency.

Global variables of the Switch

These variables are applied to all base themes: iOS, material, windows and mobiscroll.
They all come in pairs. One for the light and one for the dark variant in each theme.

Variable name Description
$mbsc-form-background-light Affects the background and handle color of the Switch
$mbsc-form-background-dark
$mbsc-form-accent-light Affects the handle color of the Switch
$mbsc-form-accent-dark

If you really want to get sophisticated or if a color doesn't look good on a specific theme and you want to overwrite it, you can fine tune all of the above variables individually for each theme. Below are the complete list of variables broken down to themes:

iOS theme

Variable name Default value Description
$mbsc-ios-form-background
#ffffff
Affects the background color of the Switch
$mbsc-ios-form-accent
#4cd764
Affects the handle color of the Switch

iOS Dark theme

Variable name Default value Description
$mbsc-ios-dark-form-background
#0f0f0f
Affects the background color of the Switch
$mbsc-ios-dark-form-accent
#ff8400
Affects the handle color of the Switch
Picture of which variable affects which part of the Switch in iOS.

Material theme

Variable name Default value Description
$mbsc-material-form-background
#ffffff
Affects the color of the Switch handle when unchecked.
$mbsc-material-form-accent
#1a73e8
Affects the handle color of the Switch when checked.

Material Dark theme

Variable name Default value Description
$mbsc-material-dark-form-background
#868786
Affects the color of the Switch handle when unchecked.
$mbsc-material-dark-form-accent
#87b0f3
Affects the handle color of the Switch when checked.
Picture of which variable affects which part of the Switch in Material.

Windows theme

Variable name Default value Description
$mbsc-windows-form-background
#ffffff
Affects the handle inner color of the Switch
$mbsc-windows-form-text
#262626
Affects the color of the unchecked handle and the focus outline of the Switch
$mbsc-windows-form-accent
#0078d7
Affects the handle outer color of the Switch when checked.

Windows Dark theme

Variable name Default value Description
$mbsc-windows-dark-form-background
#000000
Affects the handle inner color of the Switch
$mbsc-windows-dark-form-text
#ffffff
Affects the color of the unchecked handle and the focus outline of the Switch
$mbsc-windows-dark-form-accent
#0078d7
Affects the handle outer color of the Switch when checked.
Picture of which variable affects which part of the Switch in Windows.