Change Managed Metadata control to a dropdownlist

Question

My client hates the taxonomy picker control in SharePoint and it makes sense for single level termsets to rather have a dropdownlist.

Ideally I'd like to use the OOB functionality and if I code custom newforms and editforms the client would still like to be able to add/remove columns and have the form render all the fields. I've been thinking of creating a custom Field which is bound to a termset but I'm not sure then if search will be able to refine it in search results.

Also been looking at the ListFieldIterator class and then rendering based on the field type but this depends on me creating a custom field. Are there other ways for sharepoint to render these instances of fields in a dropdownlist ro is my only route customisation?

Answer 1

You could do this with script that is applied selectively based on column name or some other defining characteristic.

The trick would be to hide the existing picker (I agree that it feels clunky, though it works OK with the hierarchical data), pull the terms from the store and display them in a select. On selection from the dropdown, you'd populate the picker and validate.

The benefit of this approach is that it is easily reversed and it doesn't change any of the underlying behavior. Oh, and nothing need be deployed server side, so it's great for Office365, too!