Controlling Behavior with State

The state is an underlying set of properties that drives the autocomplete behavior. For example, query contains the value typed in the search input. As the query changes, the retrieved items from the sources change.

The state contains:

• query: the search input value
• activeItemId: which item is active
• completion: the completed version of the query
• isOpen: whether the autocomplete display panel is open or not
• status: the autocomplete status
• collections: the autocomplete’s collections of items
• context: the global context passed to lifecycle hooks (see more in Context)

The state is available in all lifecycle hooks so you can customize the behavior.

Setting an initial state

You can instantiate an autocomplete with an initial state via the initialState prop.

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autocomplete({
  // ...
  initialState: {
    // This uses the `search` query parameter as the initial query
    query: new URL(window.location).searchParams.get('search'),
  },
});

Listening to state changes

State changes occur automatically when a user interacts with the autocomplete (updates the input text, selects an item, etc.). You can react to state changes using the onStateChange lifecycle hook.

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autocomplete({
  // ...
  onStateChange({ state }) {
    console.log(state);
  },
});

You can also manually update the state using setters. It’s useful to implement custom features on top of autocomplete.

For example, imagine you want to let users fill the search input with the value of a suggestion by clicking or tapping it. You can use the setQuery setter provided by getSources to attach an event when clicking the tap-ahead button and manually set the query.

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/** @jsx h */
import { h } from 'preact';
import { autocomplete } from '@algolia/autocomplete-js';

autocomplete({
  // ...
  getSources({ setQuery, refresh }) {
    return [
      {
        // ...
        templates: {
          item({ item }) {
            return (
              <div className="aa-ItemContent">
                <div className="aa-ItemSourceIcon">Icon</div>
                <div className="aa-ItemTitle">{item.query}</div>
                <button
                  className="aa-ItemActionButton"
                  onClick={(event) => {
                    event.stopPropagation();

                    setQuery(item.query);
                    refresh();
                  }}
                >
                  Fill query
                </button>
              </div>
            );
          },
        },
      },
    ];
  },
});

Reference

State

Setters