This is a bug. Thanks for reporting.

Hey @doowb,

Is this still open? If yes, I would like to try and fix it.

Just had this issue as well

Any traction on this?

Spent some time trying to figure out what I was doing wrong while following the docs, and had to come here to find out that it's been broken for over a year. I'm using v2.3.6 btw.

Any luck for the basic functionality to be fixed? This is still a thing

The issue appears to be in the ArrayPrompt component in the lib/types/array.js file. When the component first loads, it calls its reset method, and that method explicitly sets all the enabled properties to false:

this.choices.forEach(ch => (ch.enabled = false));

If I comment out the line above then my default values are properly shown as already selected when my MultiSelect loads. Although that will mess up any subsequent reset method calls, of course.

The reset method is called by the initialize method. It actually passes a parameter, set to true, to the reset method, but the latter doesn't actually receive any parameters:

  async initialize() {
    if (typeof this.options.initial === 'function') {
      this.initial = await this.options.initial.call(this);
    }
    await this.reset(true);
    await super.initialize();
  }

  async reset() {
    let { choices, initial, autofocus, suggest } = this.options;

I wonder if that parameter was originally supposed to tell the reset method not to wipe all the enabled values on this call?

Maybe something like this to fix the issue?:

  async initialize() {
    if (typeof this.options.initial === "function") {
      this.initial = await this.options.initial.call(this);
    }
    await this.reset({ doNotResetEnabled: true });
    await super.initialize();
  }

  async reset({ doNotResetEnabled = false }) {
    let { choices, initial, autofocus, suggest } = this.options;
    this.state._choices = [];
    this.state.choices = [];

    this.choices = await Promise.all(await this.toChoices(choices));
    if (!doNotResetEnabled) {
      this.choices.forEach((ch) => (ch.enabled = false));
    }

So now a new doNoResetEnabled parameter, passed as an object property, will skip with resetting of all the enabled properties to false.

Actually, my change above broke a load of tests. It seems that the first item list was always being enabled by default, and that threw the test counts out.

This is the code that was causing that. It's in the toChoice method of the ArrayPrompt component:

    ele.path = parent ? parent.path + "." + ele.name : ele.name;
    ele.enabled = !!(
      this.multiple &&
      !this.isDisabled(ele) &&
     (ele.enabled || this.isSelected(ele))
    );

The first line is always selected by default. The line (ele.enabled || this.isSelected(ele)) ensures that it's always enabled by default too.

I changed it to remove the this.isSelected() call, like so:

  ele.path = parent ? parent.path + "." + ele.name : ele.name;
    ele.enabled = !!(
      this.multiple &&
      !this.isDisabled(ele) &&
      ele.enabled
    );

Now tests are passing.

Can I get a review on my PR for this one, please, @jonschlinkert ? It's #447 .