Selected items must stay visible or trackable after filtering

What it is

While a roster is filtered, items already ticked must not vanish from perception just because their display name misses the keyword. They either keep appearing in the filtered view (pinned or in a separate zone) or remain trackable on the trigger, count, or summary. Selected stay trackable prevents an accident: people search a new word, see a “clean” short list, believe only what is on screen is selected, and discover at submit that old ticks still ride — or, conversely, believe the old ticks were cleared. Filtering changes visible candidates, not the selection set.

Why it happens

A filter subtracts from the view; the selection set stays in the model. If only the view is shown, people take what they see as the whole selection. Searching “Design” hides a previously ticked “Engineering.” If the count still says 5 and the list shows 1 tick, the two already fight; if the count also becomes 1, the other four become invisible passengers. Pinning selected items or an “Already selected” zone puts the model back in view and lets the keyword govern unchosen candidates only. Chips on the trigger are another tracking channel: the list can go empty, the chips remain.

Clearing the filter should find selected items still in place, not reset because they were briefly invisible. A filter is not a submit and not a clear.

Where it stops holding

A collapsed multi-select already tracks selection on the trigger; while open and filtered it still needs a path to the selected inside the panel, or people will think the chips on the trigger have died. A single select has no invisible passengers, but the current value should still be seeable under the filter or recoverable by clearing it. Tree filters often keep unmatched ancestors as a path; selected leaves on other branches should be listed on their own, not only the current branch. Select-all on the current filter must not untick hidden selected items; its scope is “visible unchosen,” not “rewrite the whole selection set.”

Applying it

• Under a filter, pin selected items, give them a zone, or at least keep the count and trigger listing them.
• Let copy split “visible hits” from “selected total”; both numbers may exist, but do not leave a single ambiguous number.
• “Select all current results” acts on visible candidates and does not cancel selected items the filter hid.
• How to check: tick several items of different kinds, then search a word that hits only one kind. Ask “who is selected now.” Missing the filtered-out ones, or believing they were cleared, means tracking broke.

Related

• Within the group: E3.17.1 When options overflow, offer a search field rather than relying on scrolling · E3.17.2 Filtering should match pinyin, abbreviations, and other fuzzy forms · E3.17.3 Empty filter results need an explicit message, not a blank
• Adjacent: E3.06 Multi-Select Dropdowns · E3.14 Transfer Lists and Dual-Column Selection
• Search terms: sticky selected · filter preserves selection · hidden selected items