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

Based on the answer of CMS, I made this :

Put the code below after include jQuery :

/*
 * delayKeyup
 * http://code.azerti.net/javascript/jquery/delaykeyup.htm
 * Inspired by CMS in this post : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1909441/jquery-keyup-delay
 * Written by Gaten
 * Exemple : $("#input").delayKeyup(function(){ alert("5 secondes passed from the last event keyup."); }, 5000);
 */
(function ($) {
    $.fn.delayKeyup = function(callback, ms){
        var timer = 0;
        $(this).keyup(function(){                   
            clearTimeout (timer);
            timer = setTimeout(callback, ms);
        });
        return $(this);
    };
})(jQuery);

And simply use like this :

$('#input').delayKeyup(function(){ alert("5 secondes passed from the last event keyup."); }, 5000);

Careful : the $(this) variable in the function passed as a parameter does not match input