That's the intended behavior of the multi-select control and there is no simple way to make it do what you want using the available configuration options. Possible workarounds are ...
Creating a custom multi-select widget
Something like this should work (note that I haven't tested this much - it lets you add multiples and keeps the filter intact though):
(function ($) {
var ui = kendo.ui,
MultiSelect = ui.MultiSelect;
var originalRender = MultiSelect.fn._render;
var originalSelected = MultiSelect.fn._selected;
var CustomMultiSelect = MultiSelect.extend({
init: function (element, options) {
var that = this;
MultiSelect.fn.init.call(that, element, options);
},
options: {
name: 'CustomMultiSelect'
},
_select: function (li) {
var that = this,
values = that._values,
dataItem,
idx;
if (!that._allowSelection()) {
return;
}
if (!isNaN(li)) {
idx = li;
} else {
idx = li.data("idx");
}
that.element[0].children[idx].selected = true;
dataItem = that.dataSource.view()[idx];
that.tagList.append(that.tagTemplate(dataItem));
that._dataItems.push(dataItem);
values.push(that._dataValue(dataItem));
that.currentTag(null);
that._placeholder();
if (that._state === "filter") {
that._state = "accept";
}
console.log(this.dataSource.view());
},
_render: function (data) {
// swapping out this._selected keeps filtering functional
this._selected = dummy;
return originalRender.call(this, data);
this._selected = originalSelected;
}
});
function dummy() { return null; }
ui.plugin(CustomMultiSelect);
})(jQuery);
Demo here.
Using a dropdown list
Use a simple dropdown list (or ComboBox) and bind the select event to append to your list (which you have to create manually).
For example:
var mySelectedList = [];
$("#dropdownlist").kendoDropDownList({
select: function (e) {
var item = e.item;
var text = item.text();
// store your selected item in the list
mySelectedList.push({
text: text
});
// update the displayed list
$("#myOrderedList").append("<li>" + text + "</li>");
}
});
Then you could bind clicks on those list elements to remove elements from the list. The disadvantage of that is that it requires more work to make it look "pretty" (you have to create and combine your own HTML, css, images etc.).