Auto suggestion list based on filemaker tables

[acculogic]

Hi guys,

Some websites like the one mostly in air booking industry have auto suggestion feature when entering in the cities.
Has anyone attempted to do this with live fields? is it possible?

Thanks

[webko]

With live fields? No idea...

With some custom code? Absolutely...

Basic technique is to do a pre-find for the page to generate an array of the possible values, then use some JavaScript to parse that on the fly as people type

[acculogic]

How hard do you think this is to do? Never really tried AJAX before 

Maybe this is out of my scope....

[webko]

You could do this with AJAX to check on the fly, but you don't need to. You need a JavaScript function, and a search to get the list you want...

The attached file is actually a html file (called actb.txt due to upload restrictions) - take it, rename it, and load it to a webserver. It will autocomplete based on the array defined at Line 654:

Code:

<script>
var customarray=new Array('an apple','alligator','elephant','pear','kingbird','kingbolt', 'kingcraft','kingcup','kingdom','kingfisher','kingpin');
</script>

For our purposes we want to use a find to FileMaker. I use FX but the idea is to get an array back. Pseudo-code:

Code:

<?php
//Do a find and then a foreach
$actb_list = "";
foreach($findData['data'] as $key=>$value) {
   $actb_list = "'".$value['field'][0]."',";
}
?>

<script>
var customarray=new Array(<?php echo $actb_list; ?>);
</script>

Now the JS array should be populated with the data from the find and be able to be auto-completed...

[acculogic]

Hi Webko,

Your solutions works perfectly. Used FMStudio to do the heavy lifting too.
Another questions how would I then have a hidden field for the id of the record to be submitted to the name....

Thanks.

[webko]

That particular technique will only pass the one value - the name selected.

You'd need to use a dropdown rather than a textbox in order to show the name, but pass an ID. I don't have the time right now to do research on that though...