Replace Autocomplete library

[parttimenerd]

Replace the library used for autocompletions, as it currently doesn't support:

• validation
• required attribute

We can either replace it fully or create a fork. And we could think about adding all streets of Karlsruhe (https://github.com/CodeforKarlsruhe/streetnames) and other information to the autocompletions. A basic validation could also be useful (e.g. for e-mail addresses).

[daniel17903]

If there is another library supporting all required features we can replace it. If not I suggest that we implement these two features by referencing the input element of the current AutocompleteInput directly. Because imho it's not worth it to write or maintain a lot of additional code ourselves just for these two features.

For the street names I really like our current solution which uses the streets that already exist in our database for autocompletion.

Basic validation for mail addresses would be great.

[parttimenerd]

If there is another library supporting all required features we can replace it.

Sadly, there seems to be none.

If not I suggest that we implement these two features by referencing the input element of the current AutocompleteInput directly. Because imho it's not worth it to write or maintain a lot of additional code ourselves just for these two features.

You're right. I'm going to look into that (but probably with a separate, small PR).

For the street names I really like our current solution which uses the streets that already exist in our database for autocompletion.

May I ask why?

[skjerns]

For the street names I really like our current solution which uses the streets that already exist in our database for autocompletion.

May I ask why?

This makes it more flexible when porting it to other cities. Alternative would be to include a list of all streets of a pre-selected city. But we decided to just suggest street names that are already in the db, as else we would need to add said list to the db. as there is no backend this would mean loading this list(part) every time we load the application, or adding it to the couchdb, which again would make it more difficult to port to other cities

[parttimenerd]

We could also use a resource file, that is only loaded for this particular form? It would decrease the possibility of typos.

[skjerns]

Yes sure. We just need to make sure it's easily portable to other cities without people having to adjust anything manually within files. I would assume not all leihläden in Germany have someone at hand that can easily scrape a list of street names for their given city

[daniel17903]

For the street names I really like our current solution which uses the streets that already exist in our database for autocompletion.

May I ask why?

• As skjerns said it's portable without any effort
• We do not need to maintain and load a large list of streets
• The loading and searching of a large list of streets in the frontend might be slow. When using a resource file we would have to search it in the frontend. Only if we store the streets in the database we could search in the backend as we do with the current solution.
• In my opinion improving this autocomplete feature a little bit is not something that has great value for the user. I think we should invest our time in building more other features / improvements.
• It might be an overkill to load all streets of Karlsruhe because most customers live in a smaller area around the leihlokal (just guessing).

To see how well the current solution works it might be interesting to generate a statistic about how often a user wants to enter a street which is not in the database yet.

[parttimenerd]

Thanks for the clarification. I keep this issue open until I or someone else implemented the validation and required attribute, as both should increase the usability.