jQuery Autocomplete Plugin 1.2.3

About this jQuery plugin

Jörn Zaefferer’s (now deprecated into jQuery UI) jQuery Autocomplete Plugin, with a small modification to enable UP/DOWN arrow keys, allowing navigation of input element text. This is particularly useful in cases where autocomplete is used in a textarea element where navigation of text via UP/DOWN arrow keys may be necessary. The tiny fix is documented with comments in the relevant lines on the development file (jquery.autocomplete.js). The .min and .pack files have the fix without specific annotation within the code.

We use it in Claritty.com for when a user wants to write a twitter username or a previously used hashtag within a new tweet, so “@” and “#” are trigger the script. While not triggered, though, the plugin still hijacks the UP/DOWN arrow keys making navigation of the text a pain in the ass when the user has multiple lines. This modification prevents this behavior, hijacking the arrow keys only when the autocomplete script has been triggered.

The original plugin is now deprecated, but this mod works well with jQuery 1.3.2 thru 1.4.4.

Documentation

Introduction to the original plugin, and an explanation of original plugin options are included in the docs folder. (Documentation at the jQuery site is expected to shut down eventually.)

This modification shouldn’t break any of the options discussed at the these documentation files.

Abridged Changelog

1.2.3 --AGA

• Merged disc’s fork: Removed depricated $.browser (jquery 1.9+)

• Merged miketaylr’s fork: account for retooled key events handling in newer Opera

• Correct typo introduced in one of the previous merges

• New minified and packed versions

1.2.2 --AGA

• Merged agmcleaod’s fork: Added failure to the options hash: failure

• Merged borkor’s fork: New option not to jump to first or last position: scrollJumpPosition

• Deleted silly console.debug() line left over from testing.

1.2.1 --AGA

• Added option to activate select list with one click instead of two. clickFire is false by default. (Requested/recommendation by fgosfacdjtq.)

• Added option to forgo input focus on item select. inputFocus is set to true by default, but setting it to false in the options will cancel this behavior.

• Circumvent browser JS bug when user clicked on results list scrollbar and then clicked outside of the list that caused the list to not hide.

• Changed hijacking of PAGEUP/PAGEDOWN keys to prevent default behavior only when selections list is visible. Helps text navigation inside input element.

1.2 --AGA

• Use recursive merging when extending setOptions. (Request/recommendation by smarques.)

1.1.1 --AGA

• Changed hijacking of UP/DOWN arrow keys to prevent default behavior only when selections list is visible. Helps text navigation inside input element.

See changelog.txt for pre-1.1.1 entries by original author.

Licensing

As with the original Plugin, this modification is dual licensed under the MIT and GPL licenses: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html