Question

I’m working on an Windows Phone/iOS app (both native app), one feature I want is to have a textbox that auto-complete in a drop down menu as user enter a physical address (i.e. if user enter “new”, the drop down should display “new york city, new orleans, etc”, but only to city/county level).

Just like google’s instant search complete: http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=106230

To be more specific,

1) where should I put this city name database? I suppose local is a good idea as for city level it won’t be too big and there’s no delay?
2) where can I get a complete north america city list?
3) and are there any open-source library that can do the autocomplete?

Thanks!

Answer 1

From a WP7 point ov view. You can use the AutoComplete box. Unless there is a good reason to have a dynamic list, I would backage the list of cities within the app as that will make the autocomplete quicker.