"Faster Auto-Completion with Rails": comment by Derek

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:13:16 EST

Sam,

Put the file in your /lib directory.
I’d call it “local_autocomplete.rb”...but the name shouldn’t matter.
You don’t need to require it…Rails loads files in the /lib folder automatically.

"Faster Auto-Completion with Rails": comment by Sam

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:48:11 EST

Little bit more info if poss... What do you call the file with the modules in and where do you place it (./lib ?) and does it need requiring..?

"Faster Auto-Completion with Rails" by derek

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:18:00 EST

Auto-Complete is a great tool when it provides possible results BEFORE you finish typing. Unfortunately, using Rails’s included AJAX helpers to query the database as you type often results in a large delay before matches are returned.

However, there is a lightning-quick option: pre-fetch the results in a Javascript array.

In a client project, users can add labels to events on their calendar. To prevent users from creating variations of the same label name (i.e. – “favorite” vs. “favorites”), we needed to provide faster auto-complete functionality than that available through Rails’s provided AJAX helpers.

We created a simple helper method for this case (special thanks to Chad Fowler and his Rails Recipes book for the inspiration).

Take a look at the local_auto_complete_field helper method. TXT

To call the function from your views:

<%= local_auto_complete_field('name',@labels) %>

In the above example, we are adding JavaScript-powered auto-complete functionality to the 'name' text field. The JavaScript array is generated by calling #name on each element in the @labels array. To override this behavior:

<%= local_auto_complete_field('name',@labels, 
                              :method => 'description') %>

Here’s to faster auto-completion!

The Napkin ~ A Blog By Highgroove Studios comments on Faster Auto-Completion with Rails

"Faster Auto-Completion with Rails": comment by Derek

"Faster Auto-Completion with Rails": comment by Sam

"Faster Auto-Completion with Rails" by derek