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31

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2

I have a set of names (first, last, salutation) and need a control to allow users to select a single name using WinForms. A ComboBox works fine if the there are ~20 names, but not so well when there are >100 names.

Can anyone recommend a name picker? Perhaps an address book control that I could customize? It's not too hard to write my own, but I have other wheels to invent.

+1  A: 
Maurizio Reginelli
+1  A: 

I agree with Maurizio. To add to his answer:

The most commonly used interface which does exactly this is in email clients, where they auto-complete names (and/or email addresses) as you type them. Thunderbird is a pretty good example. These usually either auto-complete if there is only one match, or show a drop-down list of possible autocompletions you can pick from. In addition, a button next to the field usually allows you to browse the address book as a list.

I'd also suggest filtering the autocompletions available in the most useful ways: e.g. As you type "wi", you could filter it down to names like "[WI]lson, John", "Amery, [WI]lliam", and "[I]ving, [W]alter", making it easy to find people by their initials as well as first and surnames.

Jason Williams