Text box with drop down suggestions

Question

I currently have a databound dropdown list on my ASP.Net C# 2.0 website that has around 400 items in it. I want to replace it with something similar like the textbox in google search where you enter letter and only the entries starting with those letters pop up

what is a good way of implementing it? Are there controls that already exists that anybody can suggest?

Answer 1

Take a look at http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Autocomplete

Also here is a tutorial for use with ASP.Net

Answer 2

If these are known enrties, you can use JQuery, and on the OnUpdate event:

1. if it's a long list, make Ajax Request to your webserver, retrieve the best option
2. if it's a short list, you can load all the options to the page, and offer the optional texts without making a server request.

Checkout the JQuery library for implementations on how to display the suggestion.

Answer 3

There's an AutoComplete extender as past of the AJAX Control Toolkit for ASP.NET. There are plenty of different options that you can set for client caching, delay interval. Just point it at a web service or page method and away you go.