Here is my step by step experience, inspired by typeahead examples, from a Scala/PlayFramework app we are working on.
In a script LearnerNameTypeAhead.coffee (convertible of course to JS) I have:
$ ->
learners = new Bloodhound(
datumTokenizer: Bloodhound.tokenizers.obj.whitespace("value")
queryTokenizer: Bloodhound.tokenizers.whitespace
remote: "/learner/namelike?nameLikeStr=%QUERY"
)
learners.initialize()
$("#firstName").typeahead
minLength: 3
hint: true
highlight:true
,
name: "learners"
displayKey: "value"
source: learners.ttAdapter()
I included the typeahead bundle and my script on the page, and there is a div around my input field as follows:
<script [email protected]("javascripts/typeahead.bundle.js")></script>
<script [email protected]("javascripts/LearnerNameTypeAhead.js") type="text/javascript" ></script>
<div>
<input name="firstName" id="firstName" class="typeahead" placeholder="First Name" value="@firstName">
</div>
The result is that for each character typed in the input field after the first minLength (3) characters, the page issues a GET request with a URL looking like /learner/namelike?nameLikeStr= plus the currently typed characters. The server code returns a json array of objects containing fields "id" and "value", for example like this:
[ {
"id": "109",
"value": "Graham Jones"
},
{
"id": "5833",
"value": "Hezekiah Jones"
} ]
For play I need something in the routes file:
GET /learner/namelike controllers.Learners.namesLike(nameLikeStr:String)
And finally, I set some of the styling for the dropdown, etc. in a new typeahead.css file which I included in the page's <head> (or accessible .css)
.tt-dropdown-menu {
width: 252px;
margin-top: 12px;
padding: 8px 0;
background-color: #fff;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-webkit-border-radius: 8px;
-moz-border-radius: 8px;
border-radius: 8px;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
-moz-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
}
.typeahead {
background-color: #fff;
}
.typeahead:focus {
border: 2px solid #0097cf;
}
.tt-query {
-webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
-moz-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
}
.tt-hint {
color: #999
}
.tt-suggestion {
padding: 3px 20px;
font-size: 18px;
line-height: 24px;
}
.tt-suggestion.tt-cursor {
color: #fff;
background-color: #0097cf;
}
.tt-suggestion p {
margin: 0;
}