jQuery UI autocomplete, show something when no results

Question

I have the following code:

// Autocomplete search
    $("#shop_search").autocomplete({
      source: '<%= spotify_search_path(:json) %>',
      minLength: 1,
      select: function(event, ui) {
        append_place(ui.item.name, ui.item.id, ui.item.shop_type, ui.item.address_geo, ui.item.contact, ui.item.email, ui.item.web);
        $("#shop_search").val('');
      }
    }).data( "autocomplete" )._renderItem = function( ul, item ) {
      return $( "<li></li>" )
      .data( "item.autocomplete", item )
      .append( "<a>" + "<span class='autocomplete_link'>" + item.name + "</span>" + "<br />" + "<span class='autocomplete_address'>" + item.address_geo + "</span>" + "</a>" )
      .appendTo( ul );

      $(".ui-autocomplete-loading").ajaxStart(function(){
        $(this).show();
      });

      $(".ui-autocomplete-loading").ajaxStop(function(){
        $(this).hide();
      });

    };

Currently it only shows the drop down autocomplete when there is search result. I want it to show "No matches found" when nothing could be found. What should I add into the code?

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you use a jQuery ajax call for the source, you can append "No results found" to the results if there aren't any. Then on the select method, you can simply check to see if the item is the "no results found" item that you added and if so, do nothing. Here I identified that by checking to see if the id was equal to zero.

$("#shop_search").autocomplete({
    source: function (request, response) {
        $.ajax({
            url: "<%= spotify_search_path(:json) %>",
            data: {
                term: request.term
            },
            success: function (data) {
                if (data.length == 0) {
                    data.push({
                        id: 0,
                        label: "No results found"
                    });
                }
                response(data);
            }
        });
    },
    select: function (event, ui) {
        if (ui.item.id != 0) {
            append_place(ui.item.name, ui.item.id, ui.item.shop_type, ui.item.address_geo, ui.item.contact, ui.item.email, ui.item.web);
            $("#shop_search").val('');
        }
    }
});

You'll need to do some work on your template to get the "no results found" to display properly, but this should get you on the right track.