Show dropdown on filter

[Gus Oakes]

I am working on a web app in which we have several fields that are technically free-text, but we want the users to reuse values already in the database if possible to avoid retyping, typos, duplication, etc. For this, I am trying to use the combobox with a substring filter. The problem I am running into is this: I do not want the dropdown to appear when the user clicks in the textbox, but I do want it to appear when they type something and the list is being filtered. Kind of like the Google suggest, but without the server round-trip. The way the Infragistics combobox works with filtering is basically what I am looking for. Is there a way to get this done with the Telerik combobox? Or can I get what I am looking for with another control?

Another thing I want to be able to do with a combobox is to require that the user pick one of the items, but still have the filter "lookup" capability. So basically they would still be able to type in whatever they want, but maybe when tabbing off some client-side validation would kick in.

Or, more generally, what controls/solutions do you use for the following situations:

 - select from a small/medium list
 - select from a large list
 - select from a small/medium list with optional free-text
 - select from a large list with optional free-text
 - what if select is preferred over free-text?


Thanks to anyone for input.

[Yana]

Hello Gus,

Please try it like this:

<telerik:RadComboBox ID="RadComboBox1" runat="server"
                    Filter="Contains"
                    AllowCustomText="true"
                    ShowDropDownOnTextboxClick="false"
                    OnClientKeyPressing="keyPressing"
                    OnClientBlur="cllientBlur">
<Items>
    <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Text="item 1" />
    <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Text="item 2" />
</Items>
</telerik:RadComboBox>

and the javascript methods:

<script type="text/javascript">
   function keyPressing(sender, args) {
        if (sender.get_dropDownVisible() == false)
            sender.showDropDown();
    }

    function cllientBlur(sender, args) {
        var item = sender.findItemByText(sender.get_text());
        if (item == null)
            alert("Please select item from the list");
    }
</script>

Greetings,
Yana
the Telerik team

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[Gus Oakes]

That looks good! Thanks again.