Grouping in EJ2 JavaScript Auto complete control

2 May 20234 minutes to read

The AutoComplete supports wrapping nested elements into a group based on different categories. The category of each list item can be mapped through the groupBy field in the data table. The group header is displayed as both inline and fixed headers. The fixed group header content is updated dynamically on scrolling the suggestion list with its category value.

In the following sample, vegetables are grouped according on its category using groupBy field.

var vegetableData = [
    { Vegetable: 'Cabbage', Category: 'Leafy and Salad', Id: 'item1' },
    { Vegetable: 'Spinach', Category: 'Leafy and Salad', Id: 'item2' },
    { Vegetable: 'Wheat grass', Category: 'Leafy and Salad', Id: 'item3' },
    { Vegetable: 'Yarrow', Category: 'Leafy and Salad', Id: 'item4' },
    { Vegetable: 'Pumpkins', Category: 'Leafy and Salad', Id: 'item5' },
    { Vegetable: 'Chickpea', Category: 'Beans', Id: 'item6' },
    { Vegetable: 'Green bean', Category: 'Beans', Id: 'item7' },
    { Vegetable: 'Horse gram', Category: 'Beans', Id: 'item8' },
    { Vegetable: 'Garlic', Category: 'Bulb and Stem', Id: 'item9' },
    { Vegetable: 'Nopal', Category: 'Bulb and Stem', Id: 'item10' },
    { Vegetable: 'Onion', Category: 'Bulb and Stem', Id: 'item11' }
];
//initiate the AutoComplete
var vegetables = new ej.dropdowns.AutoComplete({
    //set the grouped data to dataSource property
    dataSource: vegetableData,
    // map the groupBy field with Category column
    fields: { groupBy: 'Category', value: 'Vegetable' },
    // set the placeholder to the AutoComplete input
    placeholder: "Find a vegetable"
});
//render the AutoComplete component
vegetables.appendTo('#atcelement');
<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head>
    <title>Essential JS 2 AutoComplete</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta name="description" content="Typescript UI Controls">
    <meta name="author" content="Syncfusion">
    <link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/27.2.2/ej2-base/styles/material.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/27.2.2/ej2-inputs/styles/material.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/27.2.2/ej2-dropdowns/styles/material.css" rel="stylesheet">
    
    
<script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/27.2.2/dist/ej2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/syncfusion-helper.js" type ="text/javascript"></script>
</head>

<body>
    
    <div id="container" style="margin:0 auto; width:250px;">
        <br>
        <input type="text" id="atcelement">
    </div>


<script>
var ele = document.getElementById('container');
if(ele) {
  ele.style.visibility = "visible";
}   
      </script>
<script src="index.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</body></html>

Customization

The grouping header is also provided with customization option. This allows custom designing using the groupTemplate property for both inline and fixed headers as referred here:

See Also