Question

Drupal has a very well-architected, jQuery-based autocomplete.js. Usually, you don’t have to bother with it, since it’s configuration and execution is handled by the Drupal form API.

Now, I need a way to reconfigure it at runtime (with JavaScript, that is). I have a standard drop down select box with a text field next to it, and depending what option is selected in the select box, I need to call different URLs for autocompletion, and for one of the options, autocompletion should be disabled entirely. Is it possible to reconfigure the existing autocomplete instance, or will I have to somehow destroy and recreate?

Answer 1

Well, for reference, I’ve thrown together a hack that works, but if anyone can think of a better solution, I’d be happy to hear it.

Drupal.behaviors.dingCampaignRules = function () {
  $('#campaign-rules')
    .find('.campaign-rule-wrap')
      .each(function (i) {
          var type = $(this).find('select').val();

          $(this).find('.form-text')
            // Remove the current autocomplete bindings.
            .unbind()
            // And remove the autocomplete class
            .removeClass('form-autocomplete')
          .end()
          .find('select:not(.dingcampaignrules-processed)')
            .addClass('dingcampaignrules-processed')
            .change(Drupal.behaviors.dingCampaignRules)
          .end();

          if (type == 'page' || type == 'library' || type == 'taxonomy') {
            $(this).find('input.autocomplete')
              .removeClass('autocomplete-processed')
              .val(Drupal.settings.dingCampaignRules.autocompleteUrl + type)
            .end()
            .find('.form-text')
              .addClass('form-autocomplete');
            Drupal.behaviors.autocomplete(this);
          }
      });
};

This code comes from the ding_campaign module. Feel free to check out the code if you need to do something similar. It’s all GPL2.