Dropdownbox or Autocomplete textbox, which is better?

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Hello Guys,

I am just curious which one is advisable when implementing a control that would let you select an item from a thousand of records?

Is using autocompletebox would address the loading performance issue that the dropdownbox is facing upon loading of the page?

Because in dropdownbox the population of data happens when loading the page
while
autocompletebox happens the population of data is when user type something.

which is a better trade off and best practice?
thanks in advance...

Posted 17-Jul-11 5:33am

Jephunneh Malazarte

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Solution 3

Neither. It depends on your app's requirements and data load, which you didn't put into your post. Without those, it's impossible to tell you which one is a better fit for your problem.

Posted 17-Jul-11 6:23am

Dave Kreskowiak

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Jephunneh Malazarte 18-Jul-11 1:26am

Sorry about that dave.
All i remember is that there's only one requirement:
1. the user allows to select item from table (possible number of record is like 500 and up)

so i am curious about performance hits, because when using dropdown box other than not being able to search, it preloads all record during loading of page.

so i am thinking that maybe if i use autocomplete i will be able to address that issue. :(
I am grateful for the comment of abhinav, thatraja, and uday.

but if you don't mind, if you have other comments i would love to hear it.

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Abhinav S · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-17T05:54:00

Solution 1

If you can somehow load all data into the autocomplete box then using autocomplete might be better (not in terms of performance but in terms of client usability).

Posted 17-Jul-11 5:54am

Abhinav S

Updated 17-Jul-11 5:55am

v2

Comments

Espen Harlinn 17-Jul-11 17:33pm

Good point, my 5

Jephunneh Malazarte 18-Jul-11 1:08am

thanks a lot :)

Abhinav S 18-Jul-11 1:10am

You are welcome.

Uday P.Singh · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-17T05:58:00

I would suggest you to go for autocompletebox using AJAX, simply because it would be user friendly to select the item from the list of thousand items.

But unfortunately, un-optimized Ajax can cause performance issues, the appearance of application vulnerability, and user confusion. It can even damage your search engine rankings.

Remember these points while implementing AJAX:
Applying Ajax correctly to a problem
Using a well created and supported Ajax library like JQuery
Reducing HTTP request requirements
Choosing the right data format for transmission like JSON/XML
Ensuring that network accessibility concerns are addressed
Employing a JavaScript cache
Saving state

And your application would be great!! All the best.

hope it helps :)

thatraja · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-17T06:33:00

Solution 4

Here some points

Autocomplete vs Drop-down. When to use?[^]

Posted 17-Jul-11 6:33am

thatraja

Comments

Espen Harlinn 17-Jul-11 17:33pm

Nice link, my 5

Jephunneh Malazarte 18-Jul-11 1:11am

great link.. really
thank you so much for the tips.

Dropdownbox or Autocomplete textbox, which is better?

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