jquery autocomplete using mvc3 dropdownlist

Question

I am using ASP.NET MVC3 with EF Code First. I have not worked previously with jQuery. I would like to add autocomplete capability to a dropdownlist that is bound to my model

Answer 1

Update

I just posted a sample project showcasing the jQueryUI autocomplete on a textbox at GitHub https://github.com/alfalfastrange/jQueryAutocompleteSample

---

I use it with regular MVC TextBox like

@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.MainBranch, new {id = "SearchField", @class = "ui-widget TextField_220" })

Here's a clip of my Ajax call

It initially checks its internal cached for the item being searched for, if not found it fires off the Ajax request to my controller action to retrieve matching records

$("#SearchField").autocomplete({
    source: function (request, response) {
        var term = request.term;
        if (term in entityCache) {
            response(entityCache[term]);
            return;
        }
        if (entitiesXhr != null) {
            entitiesXhr.abort();
        }
        $.ajax({
            url: actionUrl,
            data: request,
            type: "GET",
            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
            timeout: 10000,
            dataType: "json",
            success: function (data) {
                entityCache[term] = term;
                response($.map(data, function (item) {
                    return { label: item.SchoolName, value: item.EntityName, id: item.EntityID, code: item.EntityCode };
                }));
            }
        });
    },
    minLength: 3,
    select: function (event, result) {
        var id = result.item.id;
        var code = result.item.code;
        getEntityXhr(id, code);
    }
});

This isn't all the code but you should be able to see here how the cache is search, and then the Ajax call is made, and then what is done with the response. I have a select section so I can do something with the selected value

Answer 2

I have seen this issue many times. You can see some of my code that works this out at cascading dropdown loses select items after post

also this link maybe helpful - http://geekswithblogs.net/ranganh/archive/2011/06/14/cascading-dropdownlist-in-asp.net-mvc-3-using-jquery.aspx

Answer 3

This is what I did FWIW.

$(document).ready(function () {
    $('#CustomerByName').autocomplete(
    {
        source: function (request, response) {
            $.ajax(
            {
                url: "/Cases/FindByName", type: "GET", dataType: "json",
                data: { searchText: request.term, maxResults: 10 },
                contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                success: function (data) {
                    response($.map(data, function (item) {
                        return {
                            label: item.CustomerName,
                            value: item.CustomerName,
                            id: item.CustomerID
                        }
                    })
                    );
                },

            });
        },
        select: function (event, ui) {
                    $('#CustomerID').val(ui.item.id);
                },
        minLength: 1
    });

});

Works great!