jQuery Combobox/select autocomplete? [closed]

Answer 1

[edit] The lovely chosen jQuery plugin has been bought to my attention, looks like a great alternative to me.

Or if you just want to use jQuery autocomplete, I've extended the combobox example to support defaults and remove the tooltips to give what I think is more expected behaviour. Try it out.

(function ($) {
    $.widget("ui.combobox", {
        _create: function () {
            var input,
              that = this,
              wasOpen = false,
              select = this.element.hide(),
              selected = select.children(":selected"),
              defaultValue = selected.text() || "",
              wrapper = this.wrapper = $("")
                .addClass("ui-combobox")
                .insertAfter(select);

            function removeIfInvalid(element) {
                var value = $(element).val(),
                  matcher = new RegExp("^" + $.ui.autocomplete.escapeRegex(value) + "$", "i"),
                  valid = false;
                select.children("option").each(function () {
                    if ($(this).text().match(matcher)) {
                        this.selected = valid = true;
                        return false;
                    }
                });

                if (!valid) {
                    // remove invalid value, as it didn't match anything
                    $(element).val(defaultValue);
                    select.val(defaultValue);
                    input.data("ui-autocomplete").term = "";
                }
            }

            input = $("")
              .appendTo(wrapper)
              .val(defaultValue)
              .attr("title", "")
              .addClass("ui-state-default ui-combobox-input")
              .width(select.width())
              .autocomplete({
                  delay: 0,
                  minLength: 0,
                  autoFocus: true,
                  source: function (request, response) {
                      var matcher = new RegExp($.ui.autocomplete.escapeRegex(request.term), "i");
                      response(select.children("option").map(function () {
                          var text = $(this).text();
                          if (this.value && (!request.term || matcher.test(text)))
                              return {
                                  label: text.replace(
                                    new RegExp(
                                      "(?![^&;]+;)(?!<[^<>]*)(" +
                                      $.ui.autocomplete.escapeRegex(request.term) +
                                      ")(?![^<>]*>)(?![^&;]+;)", "gi"
                                    ), "$1"),
                                  value: text,
                                  option: this
                              };
                      }));
                  },
                  select: function (event, ui) {
                      ui.item.option.selected = true;
                      that._trigger("selected", event, {
                          item: ui.item.option
                      });
                  },
                  change: function (event, ui) {
                      if (!ui.item) {
                          removeIfInvalid(this);
                      }
                  }
              })
              .addClass("ui-widget ui-widget-content ui-corner-left");

            input.data("ui-autocomplete")._renderItem = function (ul, item) {
                return $("
")
                  .append("" + item.label + "")
                  .appendTo(ul);
            };

            $("")
              .attr("tabIndex", -1)
              .appendTo(wrapper)
              .button({
                  icons: {
                      primary: "ui-icon-triangle-1-s"
                  },
                  text: false
              })
              .removeClass("ui-corner-all")
              .addClass("ui-corner-right ui-combobox-toggle")
              .mousedown(function () {
                  wasOpen = input.autocomplete("widget").is(":visible");
              })
              .click(function () {
                  input.focus();

                  // close if already visible
                  if (wasOpen) {
                      return;
                  }

                  // pass empty string as value to search for, displaying all results
                  input.autocomplete("search", "");
              });
        },

        _destroy: function () {
            this.wrapper.remove();
            this.element.show();
        }
    });
})(jQuery);