Download the PHP package seblhaire/autocompleter without Composer

Autocompleter

By Sébastien L'haire

A Laravel library with Javascript JQuery script to add input with auto-completer to a form.

It uses:

• a Javascript auto-complete script based on jQuery Javascript framework.
• Bootstrap 4 / 5 CSS Framework.

Demo site available here.

Installation

1. composer require seblhaire/autocompleter

2. Composer will automatically link the package with Laravel. But you still can explicitely add provider and facade to your config/app.php:

3. Publish package (optionally).

4. For Javascript and stylesheets, see next section.

Javascript ans stylesheets

On a webpage, every JS library and CSS stylesheets can be linked separately. If you choose this classical way, first dowload and install above mentionned libraries. Then publish package files as explained above and put following tags in your template:

But websites often use many libraries and stylesheets and browser must download many files before the site can be rendered properly. Modern websites come with a single compressed Javascript file which concatenates necessary scripts; same principle for stylesheets. With Laravel you can use Laravel Mix to compile files.

Use NPM package manager : npm install bootstrap jquery

Then your js source file should be something like this:

For your stylesheet:

Configuration file

Autocompleter library is customizable. Default values can be changed, either in configuration file, or by passing options in Facade function (see next section). If you want to modify default configuration file, publish package files and access to config/autocompleter.php.

Usage

Autocompleter package comes with a simple Facade.

AutocompleterHelper::init

Inits an autocompleter object that can be passed to the view.

AutocompleterHelper::init($inputid, $labeltext, $url, $options) where:

• $inputid: id of <input> tag which gets the autocompleter.
• $labeltext: input label,
• $url: route that must be used to load data. Set empty if static data.
• $options : array of options.
  • 'labelclass'; class of input label. Default none;
  • 'helpclass': help text class. Default: 'autocompletehelp';
  • 'helptext': help text below input. Text can be string or translation key. Cf below.,
  • 'divclass': main<div>class. Default: "form-group":
  • 'inputclass' : class of auto-complete <input> field. Default: 'form-control';
  • 'resultdivclass': classes of <div>which contains results list. Default: 'sebautocomplete';
  • 'resultlistclass': class(es) of result list <ul> element. Default: 'list-group';
  • 'resultlistclassitem' : class(es) of list item <li>element. Defaut: 'list-group-item';
  • 'highliteclasses' ; class for <span>to highlite search term in list. Default: 'sebautoloadhighlite';
  • 'activeitem' : class to highlite current selected <li> element. Default: 'active';
  • 'id_field': name of field in result line containing data identifier or key. Default: 'id',
  • 'id_included': id field (cf previous line) must be added to result. Default: true;
  • 'list_field' : name of field in result line containing text to display in list. Default: 'listfield';
  • 'encoding'character encoding of data. Default 'utf8';
  • 'maxresults': max result number. Default: 6;
  • 'minsearchstr': minimum search string length to start autocompletion. Default: 1;
  • 'callback' : name of function to be called after a value is selected.

To summarize, in your controller insert:

In your blade template, insert following at the place you want the autocompleter to appear:

{!! $ac !!} or {!! $ac->output() !!}

Output methods

output()

This method output() prints tags and outputs autocompleter initalisation script. It uses the above methods, that can be used to integrate autocompleter in other widgets, or to organize code as you wish.

printDiv()

This method prints the main <div>. It uses methods printInsideDiv() and printHelp()

printInsideDiv()

Prints <div> that contains label, form input and result list. That container is necessary to define a fixed width. It uses methods printLabel(), printInput() and printResultDiv().

printHelp()

Prints help text below input line.

printResultDiv()

Prints results container which contains the proposal list.

printLabel()

Prints autocompleter label.

printInput()

Prints autocompleter input field.

printJsInit()

Prints JavaScript code to init autocompleter.

Utils::highlite($string, $search, $classes)

Takes a string, search a susbtring in it and highlites the corresponding chunk(s)

Utils::highlite($string, $search, $classes) : string

where:

• $string is the string to highlite;
• $search is the substring to search;
• $classes is/are the class(es) for the <span> tag(s) that will be inserted in the highlighted string.

The function returns the highlighted string.

Search function

You must build a simple method in a controller that will be called to update result lists. Here are a few requirements:

1. your route has to accept the POST method;
2. two parameters only are built in the autocompleter object:
   • 'search' contains the current string in input;
   • 'maxresults' is an integer for the maximum of results acceptable for the autocompleter. We provide a request model AutocompleterRequest to perform form validation.
     3. the method must return a json object with a single field named 'res' which contains an array of result lines.
     4. result lines are an array which must contain at least the following fields:
   • a field whose key corresponds to the config value id_field (cf. above) (config('autocompleter.highliteclasses'));
   • a field whose key corresponds to the config value list_field, which contains the text for the autocompleter result list. If id_included has value true in config, the autocompleter object will add automatically the id_field value. In this field you can use the above mentioned function Utils::highlite. To summarize here is a complete example:

Translation keys

Laravel loads config files very early in process. Therefore config files cannot contain __('translation.key'). In order to solve this issue, we made an helper either to print directly strings or to send translation key to translation helper. Translation keys can be delimited by character # . Ex: "#autocompleter::messages.autocompleterhelp#". Original translations are stored under vendor/seblhaire/autocompleter/resources/lang. If you publish package files, you can find translations in resources/lang/vendor/autocompleter/.

Feel free to translate keys in your own language and either to send it to the author or to do a merge request on GitHub.

Questions? Contributions?

Feel free to send feature requests or merge request to the author or simply to ask questions.