jQuery AutoComplete, custom return data

Question

I'm trying to create an auto-complete box and have been having problems due to returning custom data, I cannot seem to get it to populate the autocomplete box.

This is the data (JSON):

[{"user_id":"1","user_name":"jarru"},{"user_id":"2","user_name":"harryq"},{"user_id":"3","user_name":"sleet"}]

And this is the javascript I'm using:

<script type="application/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
    $("#add_email_user").autocomplete({
            source: baseurl+"users/ajax/users/",
                        dataType: 'json',
                        success: function(data) {
                        console.log("asd");
                          response($.map(data, function(item) {
                            return {
                              label: item.user_name,
                              value: item.user_id
                            }
                          }));
                          }
        });

});
</script>

When I use this code, nothing happens, there is about a 3px dropdown with nothing in it. The data is being requested properly (as reported by FireBug console) but nothing is populated into the dropdown.

Answer 1

What you need to do is provide your own _renderItem function. This example in the API shows you how to do just that. You can also take a look at the source code of the plugin to see how it's done normally.

$( "#project" ).autocomplete({
    minLength: 0,
    source: projects,
    focus: function( event, ui ) {
        $( "#project" ).val( ui.item.label );
        return false;
    },
    select: function( event, ui ) {
        $( "#project" ).val( ui.item.label );
        $( "#project-id" ).val( ui.item.value );
        $( "#project-description" ).html( ui.item.desc );
        $( "#project-icon" ).attr( "src", "images/" + ui.item.icon );

        return false;
    }
})
.data( "autocomplete" )._renderItem = function( ul, item ) {
    return $( "<li></li>" )
        .data( "item.autocomplete", item )
        .append( "<a>" + item.label + "<br>" + item.desc + "</a>" )
        .appendTo( ul );
};