Wsrtjtyk

As part of a technical test, I've been asked to write an autocomplete input in React. I've done this but I'd now like to add the functionality of navigating up and down the rendered list with the arrow keys. I've done some extensive Googling and found nothing React specific apart from npm packages.

To be clear, I'm looking for something like this but for React: https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_js_autocomplete.asp

All I basically need is the arrow button functionality, I've got everything else working fine.

Cheers

Here's an example that I tried but couldn't get working.

export default class Example extends Component {

  constructor(props) {

    super(props)

    this.handleKeyDown = this.handleKeyDown.bind(this)

    this.state = {

      cursor: 0,

      result: 

    }

  }



handleKeyDown(e) {

    const { cursor, result } = this.state

    // arrow up/down button should select next/previous list element

    if (e.keyCode === 38 && cursor > 0) {

      this.setState( prevState => ({

        cursor: prevState.cursor - 1

      }))

    } else if (e.keyCode === 40 && cursor < result.length - 1) {

      this.setState( prevState => ({

        cursor: prevState.cursor + 1

      }))

    }

  }



  render() {

    const { cursor } = this.state



    return (

      <Container>

        <Input onKeyDown={ this.handleKeyDown }/>

        <List>

          {

            result.map((item, i) => (

              <List.Item

                key={ item._id }

                className={cursor === i ? 'active' : null}

              >

                <span>{ item.title }</span>

              </List.Item>

            ))

          }

        </List>

      </Container>

    )

  }

}

And here is my code:

class Search extends Component {

  constructor(props) {

    super(props);

    this.state = {

      location: '',

      searchName: '',

      showSearch: false,

      cursor: 0

    };

  }



handleKeyPress = e => {

    const { cursor, searchName } = this.state;

    // arrow up/down button should select next/previous list element

    if (e.keyCode === 38 && cursor > 0) {

      this.setState(prevState => ({

        cursor: prevState.cursor - 1

      }));

    } else if (e.keyCode === 40 && cursor < searchName.length - 1) {

      this.setState(prevState => ({

        cursor: prevState.cursor + 1

      }));

    }

  };



 render() {

    const { searchName, location } = this.state;



    return (

      <div className="Search">

        <h1>Where are you going?</h1>

        <form id="search-form" onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>

          <label htmlFor="location">Pick-up Location</label>

          <input

            type="text"

            id="location"

            value={location}

            placeholder="city, airport, station, region, district..."

            onChange={this.handleChange}

            onKeyUp={this.handleKeyUp}

            onKeyDown={this.handleKeyPress}

          />



          {this.state.showSearch ? (

            <Suggestions searchName={searchName} />

          ) : null}



          <button value="submit" type="submit" id="search-button">

            Search

          </button>

        </form>

      </div>

    );

  }

Code that renders the list from the restful API:

.then(res =>

  this.setState({

    searchName: res.data.results.docs.map(array => (

      <a href="#">

        <div

          key={array.ufi}

          className="locations"

        >

          {array.name}

        </div>

      </a>

    ))

  })

);

Since you are defining a function as handleKeyDown(e) {...} the context this is not pointing to the context of class instance, the context will be supplied by onKeyDown (and I suppose it's window as this)

So, you have 2 ways to go:

1. declare your function as handleKeyDown = (e) => {...}




2. bind handleKeyDown context to component instance like onKeyDown={this.handleKeyDown.bind(this)}

Also, don't forget that you may want a mod items.length counter, meaning when your press down and the last item is already selected, it would go to the first item.

Your api usage with storing markdown into the state is just a terrible thing to do. You don't have access to these strings anymore, instead save it as a plain array. Pass it where you need it, and use it to create jsx there.

Also, you don't use cursor from your state at all.