AutoComplete

Autocomplete all the words!

Background

The project we are currently working on requires auto-complete with a large number of possible words.

This is an experiment to create a great auto-complete experience on a shoe-string.

Demo: http://wordsy.herokuapp.com/

Tasks

• [ ] Scrap all this code and re-write from scratch TDD?

Server

• [x] Read file with list of english words
• [x] Store this list of words as an array called words
• [x] Provide a way to search for a word (or part of word) in the words list (to get suggestions)
• [x] store a count of the words that have been searched for

Client

• [x] Implement simple example UI allowing people to search for words
• [x] Only start searching for suggestions after the person types second character
• [x] send the string of characters the person types to the server
• [ ] When a person clicks on a word in the UI we need to count that as a "vote" for the word, so we can get some stats.
• [ ] When a word is clicked (or enter key hit) display the definition
• [x] Put demo app on Heroku: http://wordsy.herokuapp.com/
• [x] Remove surplus words files (to reduce bandwidth) note: extended list is: https://github.com/nelsonic/english-words

Example: search for the first four characters of the word awesome:

Returns the following four words:

awesome
awesomely
awesomeness
awest

Got Coverage ?

npm run-script cover

Ideas (remind me to do these later)

• [ ] Use the zipped version of the words.txt file to reduce bandwidth when installing the the module.

• [ ] delete un-compressed version of words.txt

• [ ] Use Socket.io for faster transport of characters and suggestions.

Research

Existing Autocompletion Libraries

There are several solutions to the autocomplete/autosuggest problem. The two most popular are:

• JQuery AutoComplete: http://jqueryui.com/autocomplete/
• Typeahead.js (by Twitter): https://twitter.github.io/typeahead.js/

JQuery AutoComplete is Clunky and requires JQuery UI (#bloatware) try the demo on a mobile device: http://jqueryui.com/autocomplete/#remote to see what I mean.

Typeahead is quite slick. See: https://twitter.github.io/typeahead.js/examples but is focussed on the front-end. I needed the back-end component. (i.e. a fast way of returning word suggestions from a large dictionary of words - not just a small list of US States or Cities)

~~Which Database~~ Why LevelDB?

• Zero installation or configuration required. #winning
• Benchmarks: http://leveldb.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/doc/benchmark.html
• LevelDB with Node: http://dailyjs.com/2013/05/03/leveldb-and-node-2/
• Try/learn it: http://nodeschool.io/#levelmeup
• Great documentaion at: https://github.com/rvagg/node-levelup
• Another intro: https://medium.com/node-js-javascript/the-ultimate-database-of-the-future-45e0d00f153c

Media Wiki API

• [ ] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page