Introducing a new WP7 control: RadAutoCompleteBox

One of the new controls that come in the Q3 2011 package is RadAutoCompleteBox: an extended TextBox control that provides a flexible infrastructure for displaying suggestions to the user as they type. Coming with a bunch of customization options, RadAutoCompleteBox implements two auto-complete strategies that cover the most common developer scenarios:

• Contains filtering mode
• StartsWith filtering mode

Here is a screenshot of our new Auto Complete Box example in the Telerik Demos application:

Both the Contains and StartsWith filtering strategies are implemented in a very performance oriented approach and are capable of handling large data sets by preserving the smooth and responsive UI experience.

Besides all that, RadAutoCompleteBox also enables the developer to modify its popup behavior, as well as to receive events when a suggestion has been picked by the end-user. One of the unique features is the ability to show the suggestions in a separate control (like a ListBox) by binding the FilteredSuggestions property (which always points to the currently available suggestions according to the input) and preventing the suggestions popup from being displayed. Custom Suggestion Item Templates for the popup are also possible, as shown on the screenshot above.

As further enhancements, we plan to allow the developer to plug in their custom auto-complete provider logic and also delivering support for connected environment (support for web services etc.).

You can find this brand new component in our Q3 2011 package. Go download it here: http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone.aspx

As always, we strongly rely on your feedback as it greatly helps us in the development and polishing process to make our components even better!

Enjoy!