Question

How would I initiate an function (in this case some ajax) when a user selects from an autocomplete text box (it uses jQuery UI).

EG User clicks into an input box, types ‘A’ this then resolves items with A in it using the autocomplete and once they select (click or press Enter) then do an event.

Answer 1

Use the select callback. From the docs:

Triggered when an item is selected from the menu; ui.item refers to the selected item. The default action of select is to replace the text field’s value with the value of the selected item. Canceling this event prevents the value from being updated, but does not prevent the menu from closing.

Code examples

Supply a callback function to handle the select event as an init option.

$( ".selector" ).autocomplete({
   select: function(event, ui) { ... }
});

Bind to the select event by type: autocompleteselect.

$( ".selector" ).bind( "autocompleteselect", function(event, ui) {
    ...
});