jQueryUI autocomplete not working with dialog and zIndex

Question

I ran into an interesting issue with jQueryUI autocomplete in a dialog box.

My dialog HTML looks like this:

Answer 1

When using jQuery UI 1.10, you should not mess around with z-indexes (http://jqueryui.com/upgrade-guide/1.10/#removed-stack-option). The appendTo option works, but will limit the display to the height of the dialog.

To fix it: make sure the autocomplete element is in the correct DOM order with: autocomplete.insertAfter(dialog.parent())

Example

 var autoComplete,
     dlg = $("#copy_dialog"),
     input = $(".title", dlg);

 // initialize autocomplete
 input.autocomplete({
     ...
 });

 // get reference to autocomplete element
 autoComplete = input.autocomplete("widget");

 // init the dialog containing the input field
 dlg.dialog({
      ...
 });

 // move the autocomplete element after the dialog in the DOM
 autoComplete.insertAfter(dlg.parent());

Update for z-index problem after dialog click

The z-index of the autocomplete seems to change after a click on the dialog (as reported by MatteoC). The workaround below seems to fix this:

See fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/sv9L7cnr/

// initialize autocomplete
input.autocomplete({
    source: ...,
    open: function () {
        autoComplete.zIndex(dlg.zIndex()+1);
    }
});