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

Use

mytimeout = setTimeout( expression, timeout );

where expression is the script to run and timeout is the time to wait in milliseconds before it runs - this does NOT hault the script, but simply delays execution of that part until the timeout is done.

clearTimeout(mytimeout);

will reset/clear the timeout so it does not run the script in expression (like a cancel) as long as it has not yet been executed.