Wednesday, 12 March 2008

PHP components: Autosuggest

A PHP component ready to use to implement basic autosuggest feature.

After several requests I published this simple "PHP component", ready to use, to implement a search form with an autosuggest feature using PHP and MySQL. For all Ajax beginners this is the most simple way to implement it (just with 8Kb) and the only thing you have to do is modify some parameters. Take a look at this post for all related information.


Download Autosuggest PHP component

Before starting...
Before starting, take a look at content of package:

In detail:
- autosuggest.php include a form to search something into your database.
- ajax_framework.js enables ajax functionalities
- search.php contains a standard query to looking for something into some DB table
- config.php includes DB connection parameters
Ok. Now?

Step 1: include autosuggest.php
Create a new PHP page (for example index.php) in the same folder (don't change it, ok?) where is autosuggest.php:

Open index.php and include autosuggest.php where you want into the <body> tag:

<?php include('autosuggest.php')?>

...in this way you include the search form into your page.

Step 2: modify config.php
Change MySQL connection parameters in config.php:



Step 3: modify query parameters
In search.php you have to modify some query parameters. Not fear, is very simple.
For example, image you use your autosuggest to find all books of a certain author and your database has a table (BOOK) with two attributes book_title, and book_author. What do you have to do?
At line 23 you'll cange "USER" with the table you have, "BOOK" and at line 24 "name" with book_author:



At line 43 change "NAME" with the attribute you want in output, in this case wih book_title.

Nothing else!

CSS customizing
If you want you can change the look of each autosuggest element modifying the CSS code into autosuggest.php:

Download and test the component. If you have some problems tell me all you want.

Download Autosuggest PHP component

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