Question

Currently trying to implement an autocomplete on a clients website which searches through products and textpages. For this, I’ve made a generic handler that returns anonymous objects as JSON. My anonymous object looks like this:

new
{
    Name = product.Name,
    Url = product.Url,
    ImageUrl = imageUrl
});

The list of objects gets serialized with a standard .NET JavascriptSerializer.

And my javascript looks like this:

searchField.autocomplete({
    source: "/handlers/SearchHandler.ashx",        
    response: function (event, ui) {
        ...
    }
});

I’m a bit stuck when it comes to getting the values from JSON into the autocomplete dropdownbox though. Also, I want to use the results as links, so when the user clicks on a result in the dropdown, he/she gets redirected to the page/product.

Does anyone know how to achieve this?

Solution:

searchField.autocomplete({
    source: "/handlers/SearchHandler.ashx?nodeId=" + currentNodeId,
    search: function (event, ui) {
        searchField.css("background-image", "url('../img/ajax-loader-small.gif')");
    },
    response: function (event, ui) {                        
        searchField.css("background-image", "");
    }
}).data("ui-autocomplete")._renderItem = function (ul, item) {    
        return $("<li>")
            .data("ui-autocomplete-item", item)
            .append("<a href='" + item.Url + "'>" + item.Name + "</a>")
            .appendTo(ul);
};

Answer 1

You are trying to use the sample for a static source for a dynamic purpose.

Your source-property should not be a url, but a function:

.autocomplete({
    source: function( request, response ) {
        $.getJSON( "/handlers/SearchHandler.ashx", {
            term: extractLast( request.term )
        }, response );
    }, ...
}) 
.data( "autocomplete" )._renderItem = function( ul, product ) {
    return $( "<li>" )
        .append( "<a href=" + product.Url + ">" + product.Name + "</a>" )
        .appendTo( ul );
};

The correct samples are found here (source) and here (custom display).

Based on the comments, only alter your rendering to handle your products-response (see the second link).