Today I Searched

Today I searched for a JQuery UI Combobox. I found a custom widget on the jQuery UI site. By default it populates the combobox off of a select element. I was really wanting to load this off of a Ajax call instead, but only load the top 50 from the DB if they were to click on the arrow to browse. I made some modifications to the Combobox code to allow for the ‘source’ callback which is implemented on their current autocomplete. I also implemented the ‘select’ callback and ‘delay’ property.

I also have it setup to be able to combobox off of a text element if desired, instead of the select.

This widget should go into a js file and be included on the page

(function( $ ) {
		$.widget( "ui.combobox", {
			_create: function() {
				var self = this,
					select = this.element.hide(),
					selected = select.children( ":selected" ),
					value = select.is('input:text') ?
								select.val() :
									selected.val() ?  selected.text() : "";
				var input = this.input = $( "" )
					.insertAfter( select )
					.val( value )
					.autocomplete({
						delay: self.options.delay ? self.options.delay : 0,
						minLength:  self.options.minLength ? self.options.minLength : 0,
						source: function( request, response ) {
							if (!self.options.source) {
								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
										};
								}) );
							} else {
								self.options.source(request, response);
							}
						},
						select: function( event, ui ) {
							if (!self.options.select) {
								ui.item.option.selected = true;
								self._trigger( "selected", event, {
									item: ui.item.option
								});
							} else {
								self.options.select(event, ui);
							}
						},
						change: function( event, ui ) {
							if ( !ui.item ) {
								var matcher = new RegExp( "^"   $.ui.autocomplete.escapeRegex( $(this).val() )   "$", "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
									$( this ).val( "" );
									select.val( "" );
									input.data( "autocomplete" ).term = "";
									return false;
								}
							}
						}
					})
					.addClass( "ui-widget ui-widget-content ui-corner-left" );

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

				this.button = $( " " )
					.attr( "tabIndex", -1 )
					.attr( "title", "Show All Items" )
					.insertAfter( input )
					.button({
						icons: {
							primary: "ui-icon-triangle-1-s"
						},
						text: false
					})
					.removeClass( "ui-corner-all" )
					.addClass( "ui-corner-right ui-button-icon" )
					.click(function() {
						// close if already visible
						if ( input.autocomplete( "widget" ).is( ":visible" ) ) {
							input.autocomplete( "close" );
							return;
						}

						// work around a bug (likely same cause as #5265)
						$( this ).blur();

						// pass empty string as value to search for, displaying all results
						input.autocomplete( "search", "" );
						input.focus();
					}).find('.ui-button-text').removeClass('ui-button-text'); //added the remove ui-button-text to remove the padding 
				//and make it the same size as our input
				//see button in Message Center -> New Message for reference
			},

			destroy: function() {
				this.input.remove();
				this.button.remove();
				this.element.show();
				$.Widget.prototype.destroy.call( this );
			}
		});
	})( jQuery );

Here is an example usage of the widget:

$('#myTextField').combobox({
		source: function(req,add) {
                      $.ajax({
                        url: "test.html",
                       dataType:"json",
                       success: function(data, textStatus, XMLHttpRequest){
                         add(data);
                       }
                   });
	     
		},
		select: function(event, ui) {
                              //call back when the user selects an item on the list
	                        alert('Item id selected ['   ui.item.id   ']');
		},
		delay: 500									
		});

Here is an example of json structure that the add() method takes above

[{"id":"1","label":"Option1"},{"id":"2","label":"Option2"},{"id":"3","label":"Option3"}]

This mod does not break the traditional means of creating the combobox off of a select element

$( "#MySelectElement" ).combobox();