CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpjqueryapiautocomplete
benhowdle89
benhowdle89

Reputation: 37464

API autocomplete call (performance, etc...)

I'm just starting to plan out a web app which allows users to save information about movies. This relies on the TMDb API. Now, i'd like to include an autocomplete feature for when they are searching for a movie. Do you think it's wise to make an API call onKeyUp? Or wait for a certain amount of time after a keyUp? Overall, is this the best way to carry this out?

I will be using PHP, jQuery and saving/retrieving user data with MySQL

Upvotes: 1

Views: 319

Answers (2)

Emmett
Emmett

Reputation: 14327

You could use the TypeWatch jQuery plugin or something similar to only call the API after the user has stopped typing for a certain amount of time. Stack Overflow's Tags and Users pages, for example, use TypeWatch to only process the input after the user has stopped typing for 500ms.

Upvotes: 1

LoveAndCoding
LoveAndCoding

Reputation: 7947

Delay after key up unless you (or the server you are hitting) has the speed to be able to handle it. You'll have to account for race conditions anyway, but having that many calls isn't going to be very helpful. Your speeds to query the API are going to be slower than most user's typing speed, which means you'll be making unnecessary calls to your api, using both yours and your users' bandwidth.

Also, I would set a minimum number of character entered before you query (probably ~3 is good). This will also help lower number of queries, and you won't be running a query for 'a' or even 'ap' which could both be a lot of things. Once you get to 3 ('app') you can get a much smaller list of results, which is more helpful for a user.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions