Asp.Net Search, found changes on key press.

Question

I am trying to implement a search bar in Asp.Net where the results change with every key press. I want the search bar to contain a drop down list of available results pertaining to what they have typed in thus far.

So if you were searching for states, and you typed M, it would list all states starting with M, but if you add an i to that...it would truncate the results to to only those that start with Mi.

Right now I have just a textbox that calls a method when the text changes. The problem is you only see the results if you reload the page. I could reload the page in the method but that seems wrong.

Is there an easier way to do this?

Answer 1

Try the AjaxControl Toolkit's AutoComplete..

http://www.asp.net/AJAX/AjaxControlToolkit/Samples/AutoComplete/AutoComplete.aspx

Answer 2

I would use jQuery along with its $.autocomplete method as it's much more customizable.

More info and demo here.