disable jQuery autocomplete dropdown

Question

This is rather a simple question, but how do I disable the dropdown of the jQuery Autocomplete? When a user starts typing, I run my own function on the response callback. I don't need anything else to appear. This is what I have:

            $( "#search" ).autocomplete({
                source: "/app/friends",
                minLength: 2,
                response: function( event, ui ) {
                    $(".ui-menu-item").hide(); //i hoped this would work
                    display(ui.content);
                }
            });

Answer 1

According to the documentation for the plugin, there is an open event that fires when the menu opens. You can put some code in that event to hide the drop down:

$( "#search" ).autocomplete({
    source: "/app/friends",
    minLength: 2,
    response: function( event, ui ) {
        display(ui.content);
    },
    open: function( event, ui ) {
        $(".ui-autocomplete").hide();
    }
});