Bootstrap 3 Typeahead

For simple autocomplete use cases there seems to be nothing wrong with the dropped typeahead plugin. Here you will find the typeahead autocomplete plugin for Twitter's Bootstrap 2 ready to use with Twitter's Bootstrap 3. The original code is written by @mdo and @fat.

Users who migrate their website or app from Twitter's Bootstrap 2 to Bootstrap 3 can also use this plugin to keep their current autocomplete functions. See for a complete list of migrations steps: Migrate your templates from Twitter Bootstrap 2.x to Twitter Bootstrap 3

With Twitter Bootstrap 3 the typeahead plugin had been dropped. @mdo says: "in favor of folks using Twitter's typeahead. Twitter's typeahead has more features than the old bootstrap-typeahead.js and less bugs." Twitter's typeahead don't work direct with Bootstrap 3. The DOM structure of the dropdown menu used by typeahead.js differs from the DOM structure of the Bootstrap dropdown menu. You'll need to load some additional CSS in order to get the typeahead.js dropdown menu to fit the default Bootstrap theme. Try extended Bootstrap LESS or if your are looking for a more extended version try: typeahead.js-bootstrap3.less.

Typeahead.js doesn't seem ready for the new Twitter Bootstrap 3 at the moment. Code is not up to date and fixes are needed. See also: Typeahead problems with Bootstrap 3.0 RC1.

Bootstrap 4

Bootstrap 4 is coming soon. The Bootstrap 3 Typeahead will also work with Bootstrap 4. The look and feel of Bootstrap 4 will differ from Bootstrap 3 and so does the drop down menu. In Bootstrap 4 the typeahead dropdown menu will look like that shown in the figure below: .

Download

• Download the latest bootstrap3-typeahead.js or bootstrap3-typeahead.min.js.

• Include it in your source after jQuery and Bootstrap's JavaScript.

Full integration with Bootstrap 3 Typeahead

Download the latest version of Boostrap from Bootstrap. Copy bootstrap3-typeahead.js to the js/ folder. Edit gruntfile.js and add bootstrap3-typeahead.js to the plugins list. Build your own version with typeahead with grunt dist.

CSS

There is no additional CSS required to use the plugin. Bootstrap's CSS contains all required styles in the .dropdown-menu class. The original CSS adds a z-index of 1051 to the dropdownmenu via the typeahead class. You could add this if you need it. .typeahead { z-index: 1051; } (less or css).

Usage

<input type="text" class="typeahead" data-provide="typeahead">

You'll want to set autocomplete="off" to prevent default browser menus from appearing over the Bootstrap typeahead dropdown.

Via data attributes

Add data attributes to register an element with typeahead functionality as shown in the example above.

Via JavaScript

Call the typeahead manually with:

$('.typeahead').typeahead()

Destroys previously initialized typeaheads. This entails reverting DOM modifications and removing event handlers:

$('.typeahead').typeahead('destroy')

Javascript Example

Loading a collection

$.get("example_collection.json", function(data){
  $("#name").typeahead({ source:data });
},'json');
//example_collection.json
// ["item1","item2","item3"]

Using JSON objects instead of simple strings

You can add all the properties you wish on your objects, as long as you provide a "name" attribute OR you provide your own displayText method. The other values allow you to match the selected item with something in your model.

var $input = $(".typeahead");
$input.typeahead({
  source: [
    {id: "someId1", name: "Display name 1"},
    {id: "someId2", name: "Display name 2"}
  ],
  autoSelect: true
});
$input.change(function() {
  var current = $input.typeahead("getActive");
  if (current) {
    // Some item from your model is active!
    if (current.name == $input.val()) {
      // This means the exact match is found. Use toLowerCase() if you want case insensitive match.
    } else {
      // This means it is only a partial match, you can either add a new item
      // or take the active if you don't want new items
    }
  } else {
    // Nothing is active so it is a new value (or maybe empty value)
  }
});

Options

Options can be passed via data attributes or JavaScript. For data attributes, append the option name to data-, as in data-source="".

If you are using jQuery in your application, note that camel case attributes such as data-minLength should be formatted as data-min-length. If you want more explanation, see this issue.

Methods

• .typeahead(options): Initializes an input with a typeahead.
• .lookup: To trigger the lookup function externally
• .getActive: To get the currently active item, you will get a String or a JSON object depending on how you initialized typeahead. Works only for the first match.

Bower

To use with Bower. Add to your bower.json file:

{
  "name": "MyProject",
  "dependencies": {
    "bootstrap3-typeahead": "git://github.com/bassjobsen/Bootstrap-3-Typeahead.git#master"
  }
}

AngularJS

An AngularJS directive for the Bootstrap 3 Typeahead jQuery plugin can be found at https://github.com/davidkonrad/angular-bootstrap3-typeahead.

Bloodhound

Bloodhound is the typeahead.js suggestion engine, since version 0.10.0. Bloodhound is robust, flexible, and offers advanced functionalities such as prefetching, intelligent caching, fast lookups, and backfilling with remote data. To use Bloodhound with Bootstrap-3-Typeahead:

// instantiate the bloodhound suggestion engine
var numbers = new Bloodhound({
  datumTokenizer: Bloodhound.tokenizers.whitespace,
  queryTokenizer: Bloodhound.tokenizers.whitespace,
  local:  ["(A)labama","Alaska","Arizona","Arkansas","Arkansas2","Barkansas"]
});

// initialize the bloodhound suggestion engine
numbers.initialize();

$(".typeahead").typeahead({
  items: 4,
  source:numbers.ttAdapter()
});

Bootstrap Tags Input

Bootstrap Tags Input is a jQuery plugin providing a Twitter Bootstrap user interface for managing tags. Bootstrap Tags Input has a typeahead option which allows you to set the source:

$("input").tagsinput({
  typeahead: {
    source: ["Amsterdam", "Washington", "Sydney", "Beijing", "Cairo"]
  }
});

or

$("input").tagsinput({
  typeahead: {
    source: function(query) {
      return $.get("https://someservice.com");
    }
  }
});

See also: https://github.com/bassjobsen/Bootstrap-3-Typeahead/issues/40