Combo Box -Auto Complete

[bsinclair]

I am attempting to use a combo box for three options
1. Self Entered information
2. Auto Complete Text Box based on Data Base File with Choices Selection Criteria
3. Select Box based on the same Data Base File with Choices Selection Criteria

I can get options one and three to work perfectly but the Auto complete part won't work.
Is there something I am missing?
Can it be done?

Thanks
Bill Sinclair

[Scott Klement]

Hi Bill,

Can you provide a bit more information? I understand that the "auto complete" isn't working, but not sure of the details.

Can you tell us more?

Thanks!

[Scott Klement]

I was thinking about this more, and I think I see... you're trying to make a single field behave as both a combo box and as an auto-complete field? I don't think you can do that.

You could make it a "text box" widget, and use the autocomplete capabilities. This would be very similar, as the user types it brings up a selection list for them to select a choice from. So in many ways, this is like a combo box, the difference is that you can't use the "drop down" immediately, you have to start typing something for the "drop down" to appear.

Maybe try that and see if it works for you. (Personally, I like that a LOT better than combo boxes -- but that might just be me.)

[bsinclair]

Thanks for the information.
I can use what you suggested and Thanks again for the feed back

[bluttman]

Coming back to Profound after many years! ;-)

The issue we've always had with this is... Why can't the auto complete scroll like the combo box or dropdown?

Say you have 50 vendors that have 'ABC' in the name. You either can't show them all or the list will render down off the screen.

Thoughts?

[Scott Klement]

Hi Brian,

If you'd like to request that Profound Logic adds a scrollbar to the auto-complete results, the best way to do is by e-mailing support@profoundlogic.com and asking them to create a feature request.

If you're posting this because you'd like my thoughts about why it works the way it does... my opinion, and the philosophy of the widget, is that auto-complete should be used in situations where the user can type part of the answer and see a short list of matching options, then choose one. It is meant to be like "predictive typing" where it tries to guess what you're going to say, and provides an answer or two. Similar-ish to the auto-correct you might see on your smartphone. On my smartphone (which is an iPhone) I get 3 possible choices for the auto-correct entries, and one them them is usually "just do what I typed". So there are very few choices available. When they don't match what I'm looking for, I type a longer phrase. And, that is the type of philosophy that we expect people to use with a textbox auto-complete.

A combo box or select box would be the type of interface we would expect to be used if there's a lot of choices.

If you disagree and would like to see it changed, please write to the email address listed above.