Autocomplete input field for React

by React

react-autocomplete-input

Autocomplete input field for React.

View Demo View Github

Usage Example

import TextInput from 'react-autocomplete-input';
import 'react-autocomplete-input/dist/bundle.css';

<TextInput options={["apple", "apricot", "banana", "carrot"]} />

Features

  • Supports both keyboard and mouse for option selection
  • Supports responsiveness and works on every device
  • Supports lazy-loading and dynamic option list updates
  • Supports all major browsers including IE 8+

Configurable Props

Note: All props are optional.

Component : string or func

Default value: "textarea"

Widget for rendering input field

defaultValue : string

Default value: ""

Initial text for input

disabled : boolean

Default value: false

Disables widget, i.e. during form submission

maxOptions : number

Default value: 6

Defines how many options can be listed simultaneously. Show all matched options if maxOptions equals 0.

onSelect : func

Default value: () => {}

Callback invoked upon selecting an option. Receives selection value as a parameter.

onRequestOptions : func

Default value: () => {}

Callback for requesting new options to support lazy-loading. If requestOnlyIfNoOptions is true, then onRequestOptions called only if no options are currently available. Otherwise onRequestOptions is called every time text is changed and trigger is found.

import React from 'react';
import TextInput from 'react-autocomplete-input';

class MyComponent extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    this.handleRequestOptions = this.handleRequestOptions.bind(this);

    this.state = { options: ["apple", "apricot", "banana", "carror"] };
  }

  // text in input is "I want @ap"
  handleRequestOptions(part) {
    console.log(part);          // -> "ap", which is part after trigger "@"
    this.setState({ options: SOME_NEW_OPTION_ARRAY });
  }

  render() {
    return <TextInput onRequestOptions={this.handleRequestOptions} options={this.state.options} />;
  }
}

matchAny: boolean

Default value: false

If true, will match options in the middle of the word as well

offsetX: number

Default value: 0

Popup horizontal offset

offsetY: number

Default value: 0

Popup vertical offset

options : array

Default value: []

List of available options for autocomplete

regex : string

Default value: ^[a-zA-Z0-9_\-]+$

This regular expression checks if text after trigger can be autocompleted or not. I.e. "@ap" matches the default regex as "ap" matches the regex, therefore library will try to find appropriate option. "@a$p" fails to match the regex as there is not "$" character in it, therefore library considering this string as irrelevant.

requestOnlyIfNoOptions : boolean

Default value: true

If requestOnlyIfNoOptions is true, then onRequestOptions called only if no options are currently available. Otherwise onRequestOptions is called every time text is changed and trigger is found.

spaceRemovers : array

Default value: [',', '.', '!', '?']

By default, after option is selected, it is inserted with following spacer. If user inputs one of the characters from spaceRemovers array, then spacer is automatically removed. I.e. @apple ,| is automatically changed to @apple, |, where | represents caret.

spacer : string

Default value: ' '

Character which is inserted along with the selected option.

trigger : string

Default value: '@'

Character or string, which triggers showing autocompletion option list. '' and '@@' are both valid triggers. Keep in mind that user have to input at least one extra character to make option list available if empty trigger is used.

minChars: number

Default value: 0

Only show autocompletion option list after this many characters have been typed after the trigger character.

value : string

Default value: ''

Widget supports both controlling options: by value and by state. If you explicitly pass value prop, you have to update it manually every time onChange event is emitted. If you don't pass value prop, then widget uses internal state for value manipulation.

passThroughEnter: boolean

Default value: false

If true, then an enter / return keypress is passed on (after being used to autocomplete).
Useful if you want to have the form submit as soon as a single value is chosen.

Styles Customization

By default styles are defined in "react-autocomplete-input/dist/bundle.css", however, you may define your custom styles instead for following entities:

  • ul.react-autocomplete-input
  • ul.react-autocomplete-input > li
  • ul.react-autocomplete-input > li.active

Design Considerations

  1. Native "Undo" action is not fully supported. It might be changed in the future but currently there is no out-of-the-box solution, which solves this issue for all browsers at once.
  2. It is considered that list of options will be always small, lets say up to 2000 items. Therefore, options are stored internally as array. If your use-case requires to work with huge lists, I would recommend to reimplement option internal representation as binary search tree instead.

GitHub