Is there any way to implement autocomplete function in an edit text with a popup menu?

Hi

I am creating a GUI in which the user searches for a string among other 400 strings. Is there any posibility that the user introduces the first 4 or 5 letters in the edit text and a popup menu displays all the possible matches ?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

[Ingrid]

I have done this two years ago but it was not easy I must say. I finally used a keyPressFunction to detect which strings were typed in and then searched for this string in the cell array and then show the results in a listbox. The desired input could than be selected with the arrows and pressing enter. In my case a partial match was found i.e. can also be in the middle, does not have to start with the letters provided as this was suitable for my application but this can easily be modified.

You can download the source code from

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hrmvunbtwjrd5jb/GUIexampleEditTextFillsList.zip?dl=0

and pick out the relevant code from there. Hope this helps you to spend less time than me. I am sorry for the comments in Dutch, but the code should be self-explantory. If you have any more question you can always contact me.

[Ingrid]

oh, and I must warn you that the code is not robust to unexpected behaviour i.e. the user should not use the mouse. When you select part of the text with the mouse and overwrite this is not recorded, same as when you change the position of the cursor with your mouse. If you want to be able to do this you should add a check for using the mouse or something, I found it to be to difficult to implement and beyond the scope of my program and therefore just gave a warning to the user.

[Ingrid]

Could you please indicate if this answer was useful for you?

[Angela Ayobi]

Thank you so much!

I´m trying to understand your code but it has been really useful ! I appreciate your help .

[Ingrid]

I don't understand all parts of it myselve so do not bother for the most difficult parts, especiall using the keyPressFunction to remember the string that is typed in I just copied from somwhere on this site (which I always find very useful!)

[Vish Chandrasekaran]

Cannot reach your dropbox link. Can you please post a snapshot of the code or a readable code here.

Thanks,

Sadhvi.

[Arslan Khan]

kindly share the code Please!