AJAX and PHP

6AJAX Suggest andAutocompleteSuggest and Autocomplete are popular features implemented in most modern browsers, emailclients, source-code editors, word processors, and operating systems. Suggest and Autocompleteare the two sides of the same coin—they go hand in hand. Usually, there is no distinction madebetween the two of them, but "autocomplete" is used more frequently.Autocomplete refers to the application's ability to predict the word or phrase the user wants totype. This feature is very useful because it speeds up the interaction making the user interfacefriendlier, it helps in using the right vocabulary, and it helps avoiding typing errors.In browsers, you can see autocomplete in action when you type a new address in the address bar orwhen you fill in some form, and the autocomplete engine of that particular browser is triggered. Inemail programs, it is very useful be able to choose the recipient by typing only a few letters.In source-code text editors, I'm sure you appreciate the code completion feature. Long variablenames make the code easier to understand, but harder to type, unless your editor supports codecompletion. In some editors, after typing an object's name followed by a period, you get ascrolling list of the object's public members. It is like having the documentation at your fingertips.Microsoft has implemented it in the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment, andhas patented it under the name of IntelliSense. The GNU Emacs editor was supporting theautocomplete feature long before Microsoft introduced it.In operating systems' shells such as Unix's bash, sh, or the Windows command prompt,autocomplete for command names, filenames, and paths is usually done by pressing the Tab keyafter typing the first few letters of the word. I'm sure you find this feature very useful when youhave a very long path to type!Introducing AJAX Suggest and AutocompleteAutocomplete is yet another good example of a feature that was traditionally used only in desktopapplications. Popular implementations of this feature in web applications are very recent. (Notethat the typical form autocompletion in web browsers, or the remember-password feature, isimplemented locally by the web browsers, it's not a feature of the site.)