README

meteor-typeahead

Twitter's typeahead.js autocomplete package, wrapped for Meteor 1.0+. Issue command meteor add sergeyt:typeahead to install the package.

Initializing typeahead

When the DOM is loaded through Meteor.startup on each template

Meteor.startup(function() {
  Meteor.typeahead.inject();
});

with iron:router

Using iron:router the Meteor.startup is already triggered because it loads the template or the loading template and then inject the data. It must be delayed to when iron:router knows it is rendered completely.

Template.demo.rendered = function() {
  Meteor.typeahead.inject();
};

Examples

See demo application in this repository to find more examples.

data-source attribute

<input class="form-control typeahead" name="team" type="text"
       placeholder="NBA teams"
       autocomplete="off" spellcheck="off"
       data-source="nba"/>

Nba = new Meteor.Collection("nba");

if (Meteor.isServer){
    Nba.insert({name:'Boston Celtics'});
    // fill Nba collection
}

Template.demo.helpers({
  nba: function() {
    return Nba.find().fetch().map(function(it){ return it.name; });
  }
});

Multiple datasets

<template name="demo">
  <div class="form-group">
    <input class="form-control typeahead" name="team" type="text"
           placeholder="NBA and NHL teams"
           autocomplete="off" spellcheck="off"
           data-sets="teams"/>
  </div>
</template>

<template name="team">
    <h4><i>{{name}}</i></h4>
</template>

Template.demo.helpers({
  teams: function() {
    return [
      {
        name: 'nba-teams',
        valueKey: 'name',
        local: function() { return Nba.find().fetch(); },
        header: '<h3 class="league-name">NBA Teams</h3>',
        template: 'team'
      },
      {
        name: 'nhl-teams',
        valueKey: 'name',
        local: function() { return Nhl.find().fetch(); },
        header: '<h3 class="league-name">NHL Teams</h3>',
        template: 'team'
      }
    ];
  }
});

Custom template to render suggestion

<input class="form-control typeahead" name="repo" type="text"
       placeholder="open source projects by Twitter"
       autocomplete="off" spellcheck="off"
       data-source="repos" data-template="repo"/>

<template name="repo">
       <p class="repo-language">{{language}}</p>
       <p class="repo-name">{{name}}</p>
       <p class="repo-description">{{description}}</p>
</template>

Repos = new Meteor.Collection("repos");

if (Meteor.isServer){
    Meteor.startup(function(){
        Repos.remove({});
        // fill repos from private repos.json asset
        JSON.parse(Assets.getText('repos.json')).forEach(function(it){
            Repos.insert(it);
        });
    });
}

if (Meteor.isClient){
  Template.demo.helpers({
    repos: function() {
      // this only works if returned objects have
      // an attribute named "value" containing the text
      // See docs for "data-value-key" attribute
      return Repos.find().fetch();
    }
  });
}

Server side search

<input class="form-control typeahead" name="search" type="text" placeholder="Type to query"
       autocomplete="off" spellcheck="off"
       data-source="search"/>

BigCollection = new Meteor.Collection('bigcollection');

if (Meteor.isServer) {
    Meteor.startup(function() {
        if (!BigCollection.find().count()) {
            // fill BigCollection
        }
    });

    Meteor.methods({
        search: function(query, options) {
            options = options || {};

            // guard against client-side DOS: hard limit to 50
            if (options.limit) {
                options.limit = Math.min(50, Math.abs(options.limit));
            } else {
                options.limit = 50;
            }

            // TODO fix regexp to support multiple tokens
            var regex = new RegExp("^" + query);
            return BigCollection.find({name: {$regex:  regex}}, options).fetch();
        }
    });
} else {

  Template.demo.helpers({
    search = function(query, sync, callback) {
      Meteor.call('search', query, {}, function(err, res) {
        if (err) {
          console.log(err);
          return;
        }
        callback(res.map(function(v){ return {value: v.name}; }));
      });
    }
  });
}

Catching selected event with id

Template.example.rendered = function() {
  Meteor.typeahead.inject();
}

Template.example.helpers({
  items: function() {
    // data source function
    // TODO fetch items from meteor collection
    return someCollections.find().fetch().map(function(object){ return {id: object._id, value: object.value}; });
  },
  selected: function(event, suggestion, datasetName) {
    // event - the jQuery event object
    // suggestion - the suggestion object
    // datasetName - the name of the dataset the suggestion belongs to
    // TODO your event handler here
    console.log(suggestion.id);
  }
});

Template:

<template name="example">
  <input placeholder="Kies een plaats" autocomplete="off" spellcheck="off"
      data-source="items" data-select="selected"/>
</template>

Styling

By default, there is no style applied with this package. If you want the same styling as in the demo app, please do the following:

add bootstrap: meteor add twbs:bootstrap
add the style.css file to your application

Usage no npm install needed!