New autocomplete framework

[mjy]

in progress

Overview

Within TaxonWorks autocomplete are built assuming:

• the user is looking for somethign specific, not browsing or looking around (use filter's for browings), i.e. they are looking to select a specific Thing for a specific reason
• ..

Required features

• Must be able to return (quicky) a respone of "None"

Potential features

• Bang (!, e,g, !e foo means search only exactly) or other semantic prefixes to scope search
• User preferences
• Auto-timed enhancements, start fast, if nothing is selected immediately, start working in more generalized results, in the extreme case nothing is found, so pivot to an external source (e.g. Start looking for Names at COL)
• Real-time sliders/buttons that refine results (think more/less specific with wildcards, or "up or down" for hierarchicaly organized data

Existing features to be refactored/generally modelled

• Houskeeping related annotations, e.g. times used,

Expansions

By default an autocomplete should work, the vast majority of times, by simply looking at the text.

Technical

• Generalize response, includes metadata for timing consequences, housekeeping, etc. as seperate elements(?), or ahave 2 modes, SS, CS
• Remove dependance on jQuery
• Include as a seperate TW auotocmplete module/repository (?)

[mabecabrera]

OTU autocomplete always returns some results. There no option now to create a new OTU if nothing is found. I think it would be nice to make fuzzy match optional when exact match is expected.

I agree with @dimus that it would be nice to select if we need the search to be fuzzy or not. It is taking us longer than before to find what we are looking for.

[mjy]

See also Roger Hyams talk at TDWG on match/search paradigms. Will link when YT is there.