How to Open Suggestion menu forcefully in autocomplete jQuery?

Question

I want to open the suggestion menu of autocomplete upon clicking some button. How to do that?

var dropDown = $("<a class='showAll' title='Show all'/>")
                                    .insertAfter(this.element)
                                    .button({
                                        icons: {
                                            primary: "ui-icon-triangle-1-s"
                                        },
                                        text: false
                                    })
                                    .removeClass("ui-corner-all")
                                    .addClass("ui-corner-right ui-combobox-toggle")
                                    .click(function () {
//What I have to write here?
});

suppose this button is inside autocomplete _create function. so i have autocomplete input element by this.element Now, how should I proceed?

EDIT : I don't want to call search event. I just want to open the suggestion menu simply.

Answer 1

Are you looking for this JQUERY DEMO . it also has the source code on how to code it.

As per comments i have tried some code sample at http://jsfiddle.net/UF8TV/

I was not able to get it working in your JSFiddle code (may be becuase there is no osurce and _renderItem ).

you want to check the line numbers 84 to 90.

  if(input.val()=="Select"){
    input.val("");

    input.keydown();
    }else{
         input.autocomplete("widget").show();
    }

I think in your code snippet below code should work .

if(jQuery(visibleElement).val()=="Select"){
    jQuery(visibleElement).val("");    
    jQuery(visibleElement).keydown();

}else{
    jQuery(visibleElement).autocomplete("widget").show();
}

You might even only need jQuery(visibleElement).autocomplete("widget").show();