BlackPearl | Feature | Make creating new items more intuitive

[DSPaul]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Creating a new item by adding the separator character at the end is not a very intuitive user experience when they encounter the multiselect combobox for the first time, as it requires the users to:

1. know they need to end it with a separator character
2. know what the separator character is

Most people will just type in what they want, and be confused when it gets deleted as soon as they click away.
When they select an existing item first, they will see the ";" at the end and probably figure it out but it could be a lot better.

Describe the solution you'd like
Looking at how email clients handle adding email recipients, these are some solutions they use:

1. create a new entry when focus is lost instead of deleting it
2. create a new entry when users press Tab
3. create a new entry when users press Enter

Another, more elaborate and probably overkill option would be to add the new entry in the dropdown that states that it will create a new item, this is how github handles selecting/creating branches and tags as shown here.

The main thing is to add options. The more ways there are to do it, the higher the chance the user will find one of them so while one of these options would already help a lot, the more the better.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Now I just explain in a little textbox that they need to terminate items with ";", which isn't very professional.

[nilayjoshi89]

Separator hint:

• Control template can be overridden and modified for this purpose.
• Set separator property to different character
• By the way, space is a valid separator and can be used if SourceItems does not have space within any item text.

With respect to keys:

• 'Tab' is not an option as control doesn't hold back focus (intentionally) for quick navigation between control within a window.
• 'Enter' is reserved for drop-down item selection only. Technically, it's a 'RichTextBox', and 'Enter' key is blocked to avoid complex-text scenarios.

For approach:

• For simple object creation, having a separate entry may help. However, consider advance-scenario, where objects are parsed with complex input text (advance example in Demo). Can't create a separate entry for such advance-text input.

Why remove the unconverted text?:

• Text which cannot be converted to an item adds confusion to the user. It was done deliberately to keep UI and 'SelectedItemsProperty' in sync.
• A boolean property can be introduced to retain unconverted text. However, I'm not keen on that. I don't see any advantage in keeping extra text.

I understand the struggle of making users understand the steps for creating new items.
At this point, I don't see any of the suggestions/options working out. Let me think more about this.