ruby on rails使用Typeahead（bootstrap）实现自动完成搜索

Question

I want to add auto-complete to my search bar. But when I submit the completed user I get this url :

/users?utf8=✓&search=Thomas

Instead of /users/23

My controller

@users = User.find(:all, :select=>'name').map(&:name)

The Javascript

 <%= javascript_tag "var autocomplete_items = #{ @users };" %>

 <script type="text/javascript">
            jQuery(document).ready(function() {
                $('#auto_complete').typeahead({source: autocomplete_items});
            });
 </script>

My form

<%= form_tag users_path, :method => :get do %>
  <%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search], :id => "auto_complete" %>
<% end %>

Thanks for your help

Answer 1

From what I can glean from the Bootstrap docs, typeahead is only designed to do just that - type ahead of text. It just takes your input, sees if there's something in its source that matches the input and offers some alternatives for completing the input. If the user chooses an alternative, typeahead fills in the selected string.

So the only thing you get is a string in an input field.

Typeahead does not know how to construct a link like the one you need: /uses/23

Event if Bootstrap typeahead knew how to do that, you haven't provided it with the needed information since you're only providing it with the names of the users.

I think what you want to do is:

• Send both user names and user paths to the view
• Use some kind of autocomplete widget that can trigger a callback when an item is selected.
• Use the callback to navigate to the selected user path when a user is selected

I'm not entirely familiar with Bootstrap's typeahead - you may be able to do this stuff with it.

But I argue for using something that's better documented, like jQuery UI:s autocomplete.