RFE: AJAX address auto-completion in the GMail style

[olo]

It's currently very uncomfortable to select recipients for a new composed message.

Ideally, there should be a Gmail-style autocompletion as you type - e.g. the moment you type the 3-rd letter, an AJAX-based substring search is launched in both the private and LDAP address books, and a list with possible recipients pops up below the text caret.

The pop-up list should behave like in GMail - be unobtrusive, don't change anything unless the user presses the down arrow keys, to select an entry from the list. Then, if the user presses Enter or TAB, the chosen entry should be placed in place of currently typed substring in the address field.

However, If the user proceeds with typing (even after using Up/Down? arrow keys), the popup should disappear and let the user continute typing.

There are ready-made PHP+Javascript Opensource libraries for this, including usage examples, on the Web, e.g.:

​http://www.scratchprojects.com/2006/06/ajax_and_php_autocomplete_p01.php

​http://www.stevenmapes.com/index.php?/archives/24-PHP-And-Ajax-Examples-of-Live-Search-and-Auto-Complete.html

​http://www.stevenmapes.com/index.php?/archives/30-PHP-AJAX-Classes-Base-Class,-AutoComplete-and-Live-Search.html

[thomasb]

The current version does exactly what you describe, except searching the LDAP directory (the local address book is used). Please be more specific what you'd like to have changed.