Ajax Toolkit AutoCompleteExtender

Question

I'm wondering if there is a way using the ajax toolkit autocompleteextender to hook into multiple textbox controls.

The reason is we have multiple textbox controls and I don't fancy using 8 autocompleteextenders to perform the same thing, as all 8 of them would need to be initialized properly and so on, one feels more maintainable.

Edit:

I constructed a method that initializes the autocompleteextender object and pass each object to that method, so the only thing I need to set seperate on each one is the ID and the TargetElementID. At least better than nothing, but I would still appreciate a better solution to this.

Answer 1

Not an answer specific to the question but I had always used the Ajax Control toolkit autocomplete extender but then I discovered the Jquery one, which in my opinion is much better, and I think you could easily do what you want, although you'd need to assign it to each control in jQuery, but you'd only need 2 functions, one to get the data and one to process the results.

You do something similar to follows:

  $(document).ready(function () {

    $('#<%=txtSearchBox.ClientID%>').autocomplete('/Search.ashx');
    $('#<%=txtSearchBox.ClientID%>').result(function (event, data, formatted) {
        if (data) {

            // Extract the data values
            var name = data[0]; // appears in textbox
            var dataval1= data[1];
            var dataval2= data[2];


            $("#<%=hdndataval1.ClientID%>").val(dataval1);
            $("#<%=hdndataval2 .ClientID%>").val(dataval2);
        }
    });

});

You do have to use hidden fields to store an id, but it autocompletes nicely using a handler.

    public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
     {
          string prefixText = context.Request.QueryString["q"]; 
          //do your thing here and return as a bar separated list
          StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
          foreach(Results res in results )
            {
                sb.Append(String.Format("{0}|{1}|{2}", +res.Val1, res.Val2, res.Val3));
                sb.Append(Environment.NewLine);
            }
          context.Response.Write(sb.ToString());
     }

The JQuery is here (I think)

Must admit I used to swear by that control toolkit, but having been introduced to Jquery I have found loads of controls that I think are much better!

Just thought I'd throw a different option in your direction!