Here's how:
you create a js function that looks something like this:
function formatGrid(){
var grid = ColdFusion.Grid.getGridObject("configgrid");
var colModel = grid.getColumnModel();
colModel.setRenderer(1,function(value, p, record, rowIndex, colIndex){
var val = "";
var editor = colModel.getCellEditor(colIndex,rowIndex);
Ext.apply(editor.field,{typeAhead:true,editable:true});
return value;
});
}
In the setRenderer call, the "1" refers to the zero-based index of the column you're modifying. If you had multiple combobox columns, you could easily extract this function to be more generic and accept a column model and column index.
Then, to call the function, on CF8 you can use
<cfset ajaxOnLoad("formatGrid")>
On CF9 you can use the onload attribute of the CFGrid tag, and set it to "formatGrid" (or whatever you wish to call your function)
For what it's worth, I finally saw the light after watching Cutter's presentation on CF9/Ajax here: http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/p62805180/
That gave me what I needed to get the renderer applied to the column model. Then, I looked in the source for what ColdFusion is creating for the column model, and I saw "editable:false" for the dropdown field. Turning editable:true on was the missing piece for getting typeAhead:true to work.