jQuery UI Autocomplete Formatting for Multiple Elements

Question

I have the jQuery UI Autocomplete setup to my liking and working perfectly, but there is one fatal flaw. In my autocomplete I use a custom display like this example. I have something very similar built but with on exception...

The only difference is that I have multiple autocomplete elements of the same class on that one page. Only the first element shows the extra data line, the rest only show the basic autocomplete.

I can get the desired result by just iterating all of those class elements and calling the autocomplete on them, but I was hoping there was a better way of calling it once and having it "just work".

Here's how I'm adding the extra line:

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

I should note that I'm not getting any console exceptions at all.

Answer 1

The only way I can make this work is by changing my code from:

addautocomplete($('.tagEntry'));

To:

$('.tagEntry').each(function() {
     addautocomplete(this);
});

Answer 2

You simply need to override the function via the object prototype, instead of on a single instance.

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

Overwrite the function before activating any autocompletes, but after the script has loaded.