Question

Im having an issue with jquery autocomplete plugin. the textbox im using wont populate the results of autocomplete until i enter a value that is in the first entry of my data. After it populates that, then the autocomplete works how its supposed to.

$(document).ready(function () {

});

function textChange() {

var callback = function (request, response) {
    var searchText = request.item;
    var searchField = $(".ddlist > option:selected").attr("value");
    $.ajax({
        type: "GET",
        dataType: "text",
        url: "SearchCallback.aspx?searchText=" + searchText + "&searchField=" + searchField,
        success: function (data) {
            var splitData = data.split(",");
            response(splitData);
        }
    });
}
$(".searchTextBox").autocomplete({
    source: callback,
    autoFill: true
})    
}

after playing around with it i got the following code to work, before i was using an onkeyup event in the text box but i guess i didnt need it. i dont know if this is efficient but it is working correctly now.

$(document).ready(function () {
$(".searchTextBox").autocomplete({
    source: callback,
    autoFill: true
});
});

var callback = function (request, response) {
var searchText = request.term;
var searchField = $(".ddlist > option:selected").attr("value");
$.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    dataType: "text",
    url: "SearchCallback.aspx?searchText=" + searchText + "&searchField=" + searchField,
    success: function (data) {
        var splitData = data.split(",");
        response(splitData);
    }
});
}

Answer 1

You have to use a callback as the source option when you initialize the autocomplete (in your example you initialize the autocomplete every time a key is being pressed):

var callback = function(request, response) {
    var searchText = request.item;
    // Set searchField somehow here
    $.ajax({  
         type: "GET",  
         dataType: "text",  
         url: "SearchCallback.aspx?searchText=" + searchText + "&searchField=" + searchField,
         success: function (data)
        {
            var splitData =  data.split(",");
            response(splitData);
        });      
    });
};

$( ".searchTextBox" ).autocomplete({
    source: callback,
    autoFill: true
});

There are some more examples and a more detailed description in the documentation.