Jquery UI autocomplete combobox button click event

Question

I'm experiencing weird behavior with jquery ui autocomplete when using it to create a combobox. Whenever I click on the scrollbar to scroll through the list of results AND then click on my combobox button to close the results the results list closes and then opens again. I expect it to close the menu.

Steps to Repro

1. open jsfiddle demo
2. Type 'i' in the autocomplete OR hit the dropdown button.
3. Click on the vertical scroll to scroll the results
4. Click on the dropdown button

Script to Create Button

 this.button = $("<button type='button'>&nbsp;</button>")
    .attr({ "tabIndex": -1, "title": "Show all items" })
    .insertAfter(input)
    .button({
         icons: {
             primary: "ui-icon-triangle-1-s"
         },
         text: false
    })
    .removeClass("ui-corner-all")
    .addClass("ui-corner-right ui-button-icon")
    .click(function () {

        // when i put breakpoint here, and my focus is not on input, 
        // then this if steatment is false????

        if (input.autocomplete("widget").is(":visible")) {
            input.autocomplete("close");
            return;
        }

        // work around a bug (likely same cause as #5265)
        $(this).blur();

        // pass empty string as value to search for, displaying all results
        input.autocomplete("search", "");
        input.focus();
});

CSS (force long results menu to scroll)

.ui-autocomplete {
    max-height: 100px;
    overflow-y: auto;
    /* prevent horizontal scrollbar */
    overflow-x: hidden;
    /* add padding to account for vertical scrollbar */
    padding-right: 20px;
}
/* IE 6 doesn't support max-height
 * we use height instead, but this forces the menu to always be this tall
 */
* html .ui-autocomplete {
    height: 100px;
}

My solution could be closing the widget even if focus is transferred to widget itself and not the input element?

Any ideas how to modify this code so it behaves this way?

Answer 1

Based on issues with the various click and mouse events for the automplete widget, I came up with this: jsFiddle example.

jQuery:

var input = $('#txtComplete');

var data = [];
var isOpen = false;

function _init() {
    for (var idx = 0; idx <= 100; idx++) {
        data.push('item: ' + idx);
    };
    input.autocomplete({
        source: data,
        minLength: 0,
        open: function(event, ui) {
            isOpen = true;
        },
        select: function(event, ui) {
            isOpen = false;
        }
    });
}

function afterInit() {
    var button = $("<button type='button'>&nbsp;</button>").attr("tabIndex", -1).attr("title", "Show all items").insertAfter(input).button({
        icons: {
            primary: "ui-icon-triangle-1-s"
        },
        text: false
    }).removeClass("ui-corner-all").addClass("ui-corner-right ui-button-icon").click(function(event) {
        input.focus();
        if (isOpen) {
            input.autocomplete("close");
            isOpen = false;
        } else {
            input.autocomplete("search", "");
            event.stopImmediatePropagation();
        }
    });
}
$(window).click(function() {
    input.autocomplete("close");
    isOpen = false;
});
$(function() {
    _init();
    afterInit();
});​

Answer 2

The problem is because of a work around in jquery ui autocomplete. There is a mousedown event setup to close the menu under certain conditions. In one of the conditions it checks to see if the item that raised the mousedown is part of the autocomplete widget. If not, it closes the menu. Since you are tacking on combobox behaviour and your button is not part of the autocomplete widget, a click on the button is closing the menu because of this event.

You can see the offending condition with the reason why it is there starting at line 205 in the autocomplete source on github. It is probably worth raising the issue on the jquery ui forums since their combobox demo has this bug too.

UPDATE

This replacement event is based off of jquery-ui 1.8.18. This event has changed and will very likely change again. You might need to update this code manually with each release if you go this route.

You can patch the mousedown event to not close the menu if it was your combo button that was clicked by running the following after you create your autocomplete (jsfiddle demo).

var input = $('#combotextbox').autocomplete(/*options*/);
input.data('autocomplete').menu.element.unbind('mousedown').mousedown(function(event) {
        var self = input.data('autocomplete');
        event.preventDefault();
        // clicking on the scrollbar causes focus to shift to the body
        // but we can't detect a mouseup or a click immediately afterward
        // so we have to track the next mousedown and close the menu if
        // the user clicks somewhere outside of the autocomplete
        var menuElement = self.menu.element[0];
        if (!$(event.target).closest(".ui-menu-item").length) {
            setTimeout(function() {
                $(document).one('mousedown', function(event) {
                    var t = $(event.target);
                    if (event.target !== self.element[0] && event.target !== menuElement && !$.ui.contains(menuElement, event.target) && !t.hasClass('ui-combo-trigger') && !t.parent().hasClass('ui-combo-trigger')) {
                        self.close();
                    }
                });
            }, 1);
        }

        // use another timeout to make sure the blur-event-handler on the input was already triggered
        setTimeout(function() {
            clearTimeout(self.closing);
        }, 13);
    });

This removes the current mousedown event and then adds it back in with an added check to see if the element that triggered the event or its parent (button clicked or ui-icon inside the button is clicked) has a class ui-combo-trigger.

The code to create your button is relatively unchanged. We just need to add the new class ui-combo-trigger.

var button = $("<button type='button'>&nbsp;</button>").attr("tabIndex", -1).attr("title", "Show all items").insertAfter(input).button({
        icons: {
            primary: "ui-icon-triangle-1-s"
        },
        text: false
    }).removeClass("ui-corner-all").addClass("ui-corner-right ui-button-icon ui-combo-trigger").click(function(event) {

        // when i put breakpoint here, and my focus is not on input, 
        // then this if steatment is false????
        if (input.autocomplete("widget").is(":visible")) {
            input.autocomplete("close"); 

            return;
        }


        // work around a bug (likely same cause as #5265)
        $(this).blur();

        // pass empty string as value to search for, displaying all results
        input.autocomplete("search", "");
        input.focus();
        event.stopImmediatePropagation();
    });

Answer 3

Try this jsfiddle. I think it ll help you.

var input = $('#txtComplete');

var data = [];
var openCheck = false;

function _init() {
    for (var idx = 0; idx <= 100; idx++) {
        data.push('item: ' + idx);
    };
    input.autocomplete({
        source: data,
        minLength: 0,
        open: function(event, ui) {
            openCheck = true;
        },
        select: function(event, ui) {
            openCheck = false;
        }
    });
}

function afterInit() {
    var button = $("<button type='button'>&nbsp;</button>").attr("tabIndex", -1).attr("title", "Show all items").insertAfter(input).button({
        icons: {
            primary: "ui-icon-triangle-1-s"
        },
        text: false
    }).removeClass("ui-corner-all").addClass("ui-corner-right ui-button-icon").click(function(event) {
        if (openCheck) {
            input.autocomplete("close");
            openCheck = false;
        } else {
            input.autocomplete("search", "");
        }
    });
}

$(function() {
    _init();
    afterInit();
});