Question

We have a jquery autocomplete input box:

<input name="suburb" id="suburb-agency" autocomplete="off" class="text" type="text" value="">

This drops down, and when they choose an option, another select box is updated depending on what was chosen:

<select class="text" name="state" id="state-agency">
    <option value="notselected">Please select your state...</option>
    <option value="Apple">Apple</option>
    <option value="Pear">Pear</option>
</select>

Say for example they choose Pear in the #suburb-agency autocomplete, Pear is then selected automatically in #state-agency

That works perfectly.

The only problem I am having is jquery validation, when Pear is selected and the #state-agency box is changed, the validation doesn’t show, although it does if I manually select an option from the drop down box.

Here is my jquery:

/* STATE VALIDATION */
    $("#state-agency").change(function () {
        var state = $('#state-agency').val();
        if (state == "notselected"){
            $('#state-agency').css({"border-color":"#3399ff"});
            $('#state-err').html("You must choose which state you work in.").removeClass("success_msg").addClass("error_msg");
            return false;
        }else{
            $('#state-agency').css({"border-color":"#1f6d21"});
            $('#state-err').html("Thanks for choosing your state!").removeClass("error_msg").addClass("success_msg");
        }
    });

How can I modify this so it shows the success message if it is selected from the autocomplete? and not just manually? I’m guessing I need to change from a change function?

Edit (our autocomplete code which updates the dropdown box as requested)

$(function() {
    function split( val ) {
        return val.split( /,\s*/ );
    }
    function extractLast( term ) {
        return split(term).pop();
    }

    $( "#suburb-agency" )
        // don't navigate away from the field on tab when selecting an item
        .bind( "keydown", function( event ) {
            if ( event.keyCode === $.ui.keyCode.TAB &&
                    $( this ).data( "autocomplete" ).menu.active ) {
                event.preventDefault();
            }
        })
        .autocomplete({
            source: function( request, response ) {
                $.getJSON( "http://www.site.com/folder/script.php", {
                    term    :   extractLast( request.term )
                }, response );
            },
            search: function() {
                // custom minLength
                var term = extractLast( this.value );
                if ( term.length < 2 ) {
                    return false;
                }
            },
            focus: function() {
                // prevent value inserted on focus
                return false;
            },
            select: function( event, ui ) {
              if (ui.item) {
                $('#state-agency').val(ui.item.state);
              }
              else {
                $('#state-agency').val('');
              }
            }
        });
});

Answer 1

I’ve found a fix for this, I needed to use trigger() on the relevent IDs in the autocomplete JS.