[angular] Implementing autocomplete

I am having trouble finding a good autocomplete component for Angular2. Just anything that I can pass a list of key-label objects to and have a nice autocomplete on an input field.

Kendo does not support Angular 2 yet and that it what we mostly use internally. It doesn't appear that Angular Material supports Angular 2 yet either.

Can anyone please point me in the right direction or let me know what they are using?

This is what I built so far. It's pretty bad and I'd like to find something that looks nice.

import {Component, EventEmitter, Input, Output} from 'angular2/core';
import {Control} from 'angular2/common';
import {Observable} from 'rxjs/Observable';
import {SimpleKeyValue} from '../models/simple-key-value'
import 'rxjs/add/operator/map';
import 'rxjs/add/operator/debounceTime';
import 'rxjs/add/operator/distinctUntilChanged';

@Component({
selector: 'general-typeahead',
template: ` <div>
            <div class="input-group">
            <input type="text" [ngFormControl] = "term" class="form-control" placeholder={{placeHolder}} >
            </div>
            <ul>
                <li class="item" *ngFor="#item of matchingItems" (click)="selectItem(item)">
                    {{item.value}}
                </li>
            </ul>              
</div>`
})

export class GeneralTypeahead {

  matchingItems: Array<SimpleKeyValue>;
  term = new Control();

  @Input() allItems: Array<SimpleKeyValue>;
  @Input() placeHolder: string;
  @Output() onSelectItem = new EventEmitter<SimpleKeyValue>();

  constructor() {
    this.term.valueChanges
        .distinctUntilChanged()
        .debounceTime(200)
        .subscribe((term : string) => this.matchingItems = this.allItems.filter(sl => sl.value.toLowerCase().indexOf(term.toLowerCase()) > -1));
  }

  selectItem(sl: SimpleKeyValue) {
    this.onSelectItem.emit(sl);
  }
}

I have created a module for anuglar2 autocomplete In this module you can use array, or url npm link : ang2-autocomplete

I know you already have several answers, but I was on a similar situation where my team didn't want to depend on a heavy libraries or anything related to bootstrap since we are using material so I made our own autocomplete control, using material-like styles, you can use my autocomplete or at least you can give a look to give you some guiadance, there was not much documentation on simple examples on how to upload your components to be shared on NPM.

I'd like to add something that no one has yet mentioned: ng2-input-autocomplete

NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/package/ng2-input-autocomplete

GitHub: https://github.com/liuy97/ng2-input-autocomplete#readme

I think you can use typeahead.js. There are typescript definitions for it. so it'll be easy to use it i guess if you are using typescript for development.

I've built a fairly simple, reusable and functional Angular2 autocomplete component based on some of the ideas in this answer/other tutorials around on this subject and others. It's by no means comprehensive but may be helpful if you decide to build your own.

The component:

import { Component, Input, Output, OnInit, ContentChild, EventEmitter, HostListener } from '@angular/core';
import { Observable } from "rxjs/Observable";
import { AutoCompleteRefDirective } from "./autocomplete.directive";

@Component({
    selector: 'autocomplete',
    template: `
<ng-content></ng-content>
<div class="autocomplete-wrapper" (click)="clickedInside($event)">
    <div class="list-group autocomplete" *ngIf="results">
        <a [routerLink]="" class="list-group-item" (click)="selectResult(result)" *ngFor="let result of results; let i = index" [innerHTML]="dataMapping(result) | highlight: query" [ngClass]="{'active': i == selectedIndex}"></a>
    </div>
</div>
    `,
    styleUrls: ['./autocomplete.component.css']
})
export class AutoCompleteComponent implements OnInit {

    @ContentChild(AutoCompleteRefDirective)
    public input: AutoCompleteRefDirective;

    @Input() data: (searchTerm: string) => Observable<any[]>;
    @Input() dataMapping: (obj: any) => string;
    @Output() onChange = new EventEmitter<any>();

    @HostListener('document:click', ['$event'])
    clickedOutside($event: any): void {
        this.clearResults();
    }

    public results: any[];
    public query: string;
    public selectedIndex: number = 0;
    private searchCounter: number = 0;

    ngOnInit(): void {
        this.input.change
            .subscribe((query: string) => {
                this.query = query;
                this.onChange.emit();
                this.searchCounter++;
                let counter = this.searchCounter;

                if (query) {
                    this.data(query)
                        .subscribe(data => {
                            if (counter == this.searchCounter) {
                                this.results = data;
                                this.input.hasResults = data.length > 0;
                                this.selectedIndex = 0;
                            }
                        });
                }
                else this.clearResults();
            });

        this.input.cancel
            .subscribe(() => {
                this.clearResults();
            });

        this.input.select
            .subscribe(() => {
                if (this.results && this.results.length > 0)
                {
                    this.selectResult(this.results[this.selectedIndex]);
                }
            });

        this.input.up
            .subscribe(() => {
                if (this.results && this.selectedIndex > 0) this.selectedIndex--;
            });

        this.input.down
            .subscribe(() => {
                if (this.results && this.selectedIndex + 1 < this.results.length) this.selectedIndex++;
            });
    }

    selectResult(result: any): void {
        this.onChange.emit(result);
        this.clearResults();
    }

    clickedInside($event: any): void {
        $event.preventDefault();
        $event.stopPropagation();
    }

    private clearResults(): void {
        this.results = [];
        this.selectedIndex = 0;
        this.searchCounter = 0;
        this.input.hasResults = false;
    }
}

The component CSS:

.autocomplete-wrapper {
    position: relative;
}

.autocomplete {
    position: absolute;
    z-index: 100;
    width: 100%;
}

The directive:

import { Directive, Input, Output, HostListener, EventEmitter } from '@angular/core';

@Directive({
    selector: '[autocompleteRef]'
})
export class AutoCompleteRefDirective {
    @Input() hasResults: boolean = false;
    @Output() change = new EventEmitter<string>();
    @Output() cancel = new EventEmitter();
    @Output() select = new EventEmitter();
    @Output() up = new EventEmitter();
    @Output() down = new EventEmitter();

    @HostListener('input', ['$event'])
    oninput(event: any) {
        this.change.emit(event.target.value);
    }

    @HostListener('keydown', ['$event'])
    onkeydown(event: any)
    {
        switch (event.keyCode) {
            case 27:
                this.cancel.emit();
                return false;
            case 13:
                var hasResults = this.hasResults;
                this.select.emit();
                return !hasResults;
            case 38:
                this.up.emit();
                return false;
            case 40:
                this.down.emit();
                return false;
            default:
        }
    }
}

The highlight pipe:

import { Pipe, PipeTransform } from '@angular/core';

@Pipe({
    name: 'highlight'
})

export class HighlightPipe implements PipeTransform {
    transform(value: string, args: any): any {
        var re = new RegExp(args, 'gi');

        return value.replace(re, function (match) {
            return "<strong>" + match + "</strong>";
        })

    }
}

The implementation:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { Observable } from "rxjs/Observable";
import { Subscriber } from "rxjs/Subscriber";

@Component({
    selector: 'home',
    template: `
<autocomplete [data]="getData" [dataMapping]="dataMapping" (onChange)="change($event)">
    <input type="text" class="form-control" name="AutoComplete" placeholder="Search..." autocomplete="off" autocompleteRef />
</autocomplete>
    `
})
export class HomeComponent {

    getData = (query: string) => this.search(query);

    // The dataMapping property controls the mapping of an object returned via getData.
    // to a string that can be displayed to the use as an option to select.
    dataMapping = (obj: any) => obj;

    // This function is called any time a change is made in the autocomplete.
    // When the text is changed manually, no object is passed.
    // When a selection is made the object is passed.
    change(obj: any): void {
        if (obj) {
            // You can do pretty much anything here as the entire object is passed if it's been selected.
            // Navigate to another page, update a model etc.
            alert(obj);
        }
    }

    private searchData = ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five', 'six', 'seven', 'eight', 'nine', 'ten'];

    // This function mimics an Observable http service call.
    // In reality it's probably calling your API, but today it's looking at mock static data.
    private search(query: string): Observable<any>
    {
        return new Observable<any>((subscriber: Subscriber<any>) => subscriber
            .next())
            .map(o => this.searchData.filter(d => d.indexOf(query) > -1));
    }
}

PrimeNG has a native AutoComplete component with advanced features like templating and multiple selection.

http://www.primefaces.org/primeng/#/autocomplete