Get Text From Field On Keyup, But With Delay For Further Typing

I have a form which is submitted remotely when the various elements change. On a search field in particular I'm using a keyup to detect when the text in the field changes. The pr

Solution 1:

Sorry i haven't tested this and it's a bit off the top of my head, but something along these lines should hopefully do the trick. Change the 2000 to however many milliseconds you need between server posts

<input type="text" id="mytextbox" style="border: 1px solid" />
<span></span>

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    jQuery(function(){
      jQuery('#mytextbox')
        .data('timeout', null)
        .keyup(function(){
            clearTimeout(jQuery(this).data('timeout'));
            jQuery(this).data('timeout', setTimeout(submitQuizForm, 2000));
        });
    });
</script>

Solution 2:

Here's your fancy jquery extension:

(function($){

$.widget("ui.onDelayedKeyup", {

    _init : function() {
        var self = this;
        $(this.element).keyup(function() {
            if(typeof(window['inputTimeout']) != "undefined"){
                window.clearTimeout(inputTimeout);
            }  
            var handler = self.options.handler;
            window['inputTimeout'] = window.setTimeout(function() {
                handler.call(self.element) }, self.options.delay);
        });
    },
    options: {
        handler: $.noop(),
        delay: 500
    }

});
})(jQuery);

Use it like so:

    $("input.filterField").onDelayedKeyup({
        handler: function() {
            if ($.trim($(this).val()).length > 0) {
                //reload my data store using the filter string.
            }
        }
    });

Does a half-second delay by default.

Solution 3:

As an update, i ended up with this which seems to work well:

function afterDelayedKeyup(selector, action, delay){
  jQuery(selector).keyup(function(){
    if(typeof(window['inputTimeout']) != "undefined"){
      clearTimeout(inputTimeout);
    }  
    inputTimeout = setTimeout(action, delay);
  });
}

I then call this from the page in question's document.ready block with

  afterDelayedKeyup('input#search',"submitQuizForm()",500)

What would be nice would be to make a new jquery event which uses this logic, eg .delayedKeyup to go alongside .keyup, so i could just say something like this for an individual page's document.ready block.

  jQuery('input#search').delayedKeyup(function(){
    submitQuizForm();
  });

But, i don't know how to customise jquery in this way. That's a nice homework task though.

Solution 4:

Nice job, Max, that was very helpful to me! I've made a slight improvement to your function by making it more general:

function afterDelayedEvent(eventtype, selector, action, delay) {
    $(selector).bind(eventtype, function() {
        if (typeof(window['inputTimeout']) != "undefined") {
            clearTimeout(inputTimeout);
        }
        inputTimeout = setTimeout(action, delay);
    });
}

This way you can use it for any type of event, although keyup is probably the most useful here.

Solution 5:

I know this is old, but it was one of the first results when I was searching for how to do something like this so I though I would share my solution. I used a combination of the provided answers to get what I needed out of it.

I wanted a custom event that worked just like the existing jQuery events, and it needed to work with keypress + delete, backspace and enter.

Here's my jQuery plugin:

$.fn.typePause = function (dataObject, eventFunc)
    {
        if(typeof dataObject === 'function')
        {
            eventFunc = dataObject;
            dataObject = {};
        }
        if(typeof dataObject.milliseconds === 'undefined')
            dataObject.milliseconds = 500;
        $(this).data('timeout', null)
            .keypress(dataObject, function(e)
            {
                clearTimeout($(this).data('timeout'));
                $(this).data('timeout', setTimeout($.proxy(eventFunc, this, e), dataObject.milliseconds));
            })
            .keyup(dataObject, function(e)
            {
                var code = (e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which);
                if(code == 8 || code == 46 || code == 13)
                    $(this).triggerHandler('keypress',dataObject);
            });
    }

I used $.proxy() to preserve the context in the event, though there could be a better way to do this, performance-wise.

To use this plugin, just do:

$('#myElement').typePause(function(e){ /* do stuff */ });

or

$('#myElement').typePause({milliseconds: 500, [other data to pass to event]},function(e){ /* do stuff */ });