How to delay the .keyup() handler until the user stops typing?

Question

I’ve got a search field. Right now it searches for every keyup. So if someone types “Windows”, it will make a search with AJAX for every keyup: “W”, “Wi”, “Win”, “Wind”, “Wi

Answer 1

If you want to search after the type is done use a global variable to hold the timeout returned from your setTimout call and cancel it with a clearTimeout if it hasn't yet happend so that it won't fire the timeout except on the last keyup event

var globalTimeout = null;  
$('#id').keyup(function(){
  if(globalTimeout != null) clearTimeout(globalTimeout);  
  globalTimeout =setTimeout(SearchFunc,200);  
}   
function SearchFunc(){  
  globalTimeout = null;  
  //ajax code
}

Or with an anonymous function :

var globalTimeout = null;  
$('#id').keyup(function() {
  if (globalTimeout != null) {
    clearTimeout(globalTimeout);
  }
  globalTimeout = setTimeout(function() {
    globalTimeout = null;  

    //ajax code

  }, 200);  
}