Style jQuery autocomplete in a Bootstrap input field

Question

I have implemented a jQuery autocomplete function to a Bootstrap input. The jQuery autocomplete is working fine but I want to see the results as a combo and I guess it's now happening because I'm using BootStrap.

This is the field that I'm assigning autocomplete:

<div class="form-group">
  <label>Employee</label>
  <input class="form-control" name="txtEmployee" placeholder="Trabajador">
</div>

$(this).autocomplete({

  source: function(request, response) {
    $.ajax({
      url: '@Url.Content("~/Employee/SearchEmployee")/',
      type: 'POST',
      contentType: 'application/json',
      dataType: "json",
      data: JSON.stringify({
          employerId: 1,
          searchStr: me.val()
      }),
      success: function(data) {
        if (data.success) {

          response($.map(data.data, function(item) {

            return {
              label: "(" + item.EmployeeNumber + ") " + 
                           item.FirstName + " " + 
                           item.MothersLast + ", " + 
                           item.FathersLast,
              employeeId: item.EmployeeId
            }
          }));
        } 
      }
    });
  },
  minLength: 3
});

The results are displayed but like this:

How can I style the results with Bootstrap so I can see them like dropdownlist?

Answer 1

If you're using jQuery-UI, you must include the jQuery UI CSS package, otherwise the UI components don't know how to be styled.

If you don't like the jQuery UI styles, then you'll have to recreate all the styles it would have otherwise applied.

Here's an example and some possible fixes.

Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example (i.e. broken)

Here's a demo in Stack Snippets without jquery-ui.css (doesn't work)

$(function() {
  var availableTags = [
    "ActionScript", "AppleScript", "Asp", "BASIC", "C", "C++",
    "Clojure", "COBOL", "ColdFusion", "Erlang", "Fortran",
    "Groovy", "Haskell", "Java", "JavaScript", "Lisp", "Perl",
    "PHP", "Python", "Ruby", "Scala", "Scheme"
  ];
  
  $(".autocomplete").autocomplete({
    source: availableTags
  });
});

<link href="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.11.2/jquery-ui.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/js/bootstrap.js"></script>

<div class="container">

  <div class="form-group">
    <label>Languages</label>
    <input class="form-control autocomplete" placeholder="Enter A" />
  </div>
  
  <div class="form-group">
    <label >Another Field</label>
    <input class="form-control">
  </div>

</div>

Fix #1 - jQuery-UI Style

Just include jquery-ui.css and everything should work just fine with the latest supported versions of jquery.

$(function() {
  var availableTags = [
    "ActionScript", "AppleScript", "Asp", "BASIC", "C", "C++",
    "Clojure", "COBOL", "ColdFusion", "Erlang", "Fortran",
    "Groovy", "Haskell", "Java", "JavaScript", "Lisp", "Perl",
    "PHP", "Python", "Ruby", "Scala", "Scheme"
  ];
  
  $(".autocomplete").autocomplete({
    source: availableTags
  });
});

<link href="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.11.2/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<link href="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.11.2/jquery-ui.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/js/bootstrap.js"></script>

<div class="container">
  <div class="form-group">
    <label>Languages</label>
    <input class="form-control autocomplete" placeholder="Enter A" />
  </div>
  
  <div class="form-group">
    <label >Another Field</label>
    <input class="form-control">
  </div>
</div>

Fix #2 - Bootstrap Theme

There is a project that created a Bootstrap-esque theme for jQuery-UI components called jquery‑ui‑bootstrap. Just grab the stylesheet from there and you should be all set.

$(function() {
  var availableTags = [
    "ActionScript", "AppleScript", "Asp", "BASIC", "C", "C++",
    "Clojure", "COBOL", "ColdFusion", "Erlang", "Fortran",
    "Groovy", "Haskell", "Java", "JavaScript", "Lisp", "Perl",
    "PHP", "Python", "Ruby", "Scala", "Scheme"
  ];
  
  $(".autocomplete").autocomplete({
    source: availableTags
  });
});

<link href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery-ui-bootstrap/0.5pre/css/custom-theme/jquery-ui-1.10.0.custom.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<link href="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.11.2/jquery-ui.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/js/bootstrap.js"></script>

<div class="container">
  <div class="form-group">
    <label>Languages</label>
    <input class="form-control autocomplete" placeholder="Enter A" />
  </div>
  
  <div class="form-group">
    <label >Another Field</label>
    <input class="form-control">
  </div>
</div>

Fix #3 - Manual CSS

If you only need the AutoComplete widget from jQuery-UI's library, you should start by doing a custom build so you don't pull in resources you're not using.

After that, you'll need to style it yourself. Just look at some of the other styles that are applied to jquery's autocomplete.css and theme.css to figure out what styles you'll need to manually replace.

You can use bootstrap's dropdowns.less for inspiration.

Here's a sample CSS that fits pretty well with Bootstrap's default theme:

.ui-autocomplete {
    position: absolute;
    z-index: 1000;
    cursor: default;
    padding: 0;
    margin-top: 2px;
    list-style: none;
    background-color: #ffffff;
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
       -moz-border-radius: 5px;
            border-radius: 5px;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
       -moz-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
            box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
}
.ui-autocomplete > li {
  padding: 3px 20px;
}
.ui-autocomplete > li.ui-state-focus {
  background-color: #DDD;
}
.ui-helper-hidden-accessible {
  display: none;
}

$(function() {
  var availableTags = [
    "ActionScript", "AppleScript", "Asp", "BASIC", "C", "C++",
    "Clojure", "COBOL", "ColdFusion", "Erlang", "Fortran",
    "Groovy", "Haskell", "Java", "JavaScript", "Lisp", "Perl",
    "PHP", "Python", "Ruby", "Scala", "Scheme"
  ];
  
  $(".autocomplete").autocomplete({
    source: availableTags
  });
});

.ui-autocomplete {
    position: absolute;
    z-index: 1000;
    cursor: default;
    padding: 0;
    margin-top: 2px;
    list-style: none;
    background-color: #ffffff;
    border: 1px solid #ccc
    -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
       -moz-border-radius: 5px;
            border-radius: 5px;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
       -moz-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
            box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
}
.ui-autocomplete > li {
  padding: 3px 20px;
}
.ui-autocomplete > li.ui-state-focus {
  background-color: #DDD;
}
.ui-helper-hidden-accessible {
  display: none;
}

<link href="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.11.2/jquery-ui.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.2/js/bootstrap.js"></script>

<div class="container">
  <div class="form-group ui-widget">
    <label>Languages</label>
    <input class="form-control autocomplete" placeholder="Enter A" />
  </div>
  
  <div class="form-group ui-widget">
    <label >Another Field</label>
    <input class="form-control" />
  </div>
</div>

Tip: Since the dropdown menu hides every time you go to inspect the element (i.e. whenever the input loses focus), for easier debugging of the style, find the control with .ui-autocomplete and remove display: none;.