How do I implement Autocomplete without using a Dropdownlist?

Question

How can I implement Autocomplete without a dropdownlist? I\'d like for the autocomplete to fill in the remaining letters in the textbox in an alternate grey, as shown

Answer 1

jQuery.suggest.js

The discussion here has lead to the development of a jQuery plugin, which you can find here: http://polarblau.github.com/suggest/.

All code and examples below are therefore outdated but might still be interesting for some.

---

I've been very interested in the outcome of this question, but it seems that hasn't been anything found yet.

I've thought about writing my own solution for a little while now and I can tell you what I had in mind (and this is only in my head right now and definitely not anyhow tried out):

HTML:

CSS:

#container {
    position: relative;
}

#search {
    position: relative;
    color: #000;
    z-index: 10;
    background: transparent;
    // border, etc....
}

#suggestion {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    z-index: 0;
    color: #ccc;
    border: none;
    // ...
}

The use Javascript 'onkeydown' to match the first (sort criteria are important here) word from a list that shares the already typed letters in the beginning of the word and place it in the disabled input field #suggestion. If the user hits enter, the word from #suggestion will be transfered into the #search input field and possibly the form submitted.

If I find the time I'll try to make it a working jQuery plugin — let's see. But maybe you get the idea?

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EDIT

I've tried my idea and it seems to work in it's simplest form quite okay. I'll release it as a small jQuery plugin soon at my github account. I'll drop you a note here, once I'm done. Or go ahead and give it a crack yourself and let me know how it's coming.

Here's the code that I ended up using (parts of it would probably be dynamically generated):

HTML:

CSS:

* { margin: 0; padding: 0; }

#search-container {
    position: relative;
}

#search-container input {

    padding: 5px;
    font-size: 1.2em;
    width: 200px;
}

#search {
    position: relative;
    color: #000;
    z-index: 10;
    border: 1px solid #666;
    background: transparent;
}

#suggestion {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    z-index: 0;
    color: #ccc;
    background: transparent;
    border: 1px solid #fff;
}

JAVASCRIPT:

$(function() {

    var haystack = [
        "ActionScript",
        "AppleScript",
        "Asp",
        "BASIC",
        "C",
        "C++",
        "Clojure",
        "COBOL",
        "ColdFusion",
        "Erlang",
        "Fortran",
        "Groovy",
        "Haskell",
        "Java",
        "JavaScript",
        "Lisp",
        "Perl",
        "PHP",
        "Python",
        "Ruby",
        "Scala",
        "Scheme"
        ];

    $('#search').keyup(function(e) {
        // 'enter' key was pressed
        var $suggest = $('#suggestion');
        var code = (e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which);
        if(code == 13) {
            $(this).val($suggest.val());
            $suggest.val("");
            return false;
        }

        // some other key was pressed
        var needle = $(this).val();

        // is the field empty?
        if (!$.trim(needle).length) {
            $suggest.val("");
            return false;
        }

        // compare input with haystack
        $.each(haystack, function(i, term) {
            var regex = new RegExp('^' + needle, 'i');
            if (regex.test(term)) {
                $suggest.val(needle + term.slice(needle.length));
                // use first result
                return false;
            }
            $suggest.val("");
        });
    });

});