[development] better autocompletion?

[Moshe Weitzman]

Hmmm. I can't yet understand what you are trying to do. Please give a use
case.

I'll add that autocomplete can certainly return full HTML for each match so
we could show a profile picture along with each matching user if we desired.
I saw this on some site and it looked terrific IMO.

It seems that other modules have also tacked this problem when author has to
identify a 'related node' in a form. One module (relativity?) adds a link
(for current user only) to all nodes which reads 'use this node for x' when
you are searching for a related node. It also offers a 'cancel searching'
link. The destination on each link takes you back to its form after some
processing has occurred. Might be an option in your case.


On 4/18/06 6:43 AM, "Gerhard Killesreiter" <gerhard at killesreiter.de> wrote:

> Hi there!
> 
> I have a problem with autocompletion for selecting a node by title.
> 
> This is a very noce methid to find a node, but the problem is that it is
> ambiguous. There might be several nodes by the same name. You can try to
> make it less ambiguous by adding the author's name and or the date, but
> only the node ID will do away with ambiguity. The problem is that the UI
> does not look really nice.
> 
> I've thought about a way to transfer more information in the request,
> but this is problematic. After all an autcompletion field is just a
> textfield. Also, we need to keep non-JS browsers in mind and if I
> essentially require CSV data in the textfield this is a usability
> nightmare for these people. To process CSV data for select fields is
> also not much fun and error prone.
> 
> Now, the following idea won't help non-JS browsers at all, but it will
> be helpful for JS-browsers. The idea is to store all the information
> about the selection made by the user in a session variable.
> 
> You can already assign the available selections to a session variable
> after populating the array of matches. What is required is to make this
> information contain only the actual selected value. To this end the JS
> would need to run the autocompletion function one more time after the
> user has moved out of the select field.
> 
> My questions are:
> 
> 1) Is this possible?
> 2) Does anybody else consider this a good idea?
> 
> 
> Cheers,
>     Gerhard