Search with auto suggest for SharePoint lists – new version

Two years ago, while SharePoint 2010 was still in beta, I released Search Suggest for SharePoint 2010 lists. A number of people contacted me with various bug reports and feature suggestions. Finally, I found some time and refactored this old code to accommodate your suggestions.

Changes

• Improvement: You can now define list columns (fields) to be queried
• Improvement: You can now customize the display format
• Fixed bug: Values from External Data Columns are not shown
• Fixed bug: Web part is slow when querying a large list
• Fixed bug: Trying to use a SPWeb object that has been closed or disposed and is no longer used.

Installation

Search AutoComplete for SharePoint Lists is a SandBox solution and can be deployed to any farm environment. If Sandbox solutions are disallowed for your site collection, contact your farm administrator.

UPGRADE: If you already have a previous version, uninstall it, and then re-add the solution.

• Download and unpack solution package (it also available as open source project on CodePlex)
• Go to your Site Collection > Site Actions > Site Settings
• Browse Galleries > Solutions
• Go to Solutions ribbon tab and click Upload Solution
• Upload the WSP package you downloaded and Activate it
• Open a SharePoint web page and Insert a web part
  (from Custom > Search AutoComplete for Lists)

Configuration

You can configure this web part via web part tool pane. Use the following settings from the Search section:

• List name – Enter list name that you want to search
• Display Fields Format – Enter fields whose value you want to display. Use static field names.
  Each field must be in square brackets. E.g. [FirstName] [Title] (phone [WorkPhone])
• Query Fields – Fields that will be queried. Separate fields with semicolon. Use static field names. e.g. Title;FirstName;WorkPhone

Additional appearance options can be found in the Miscellaneous category.

Configuration Examples

The following table lists suggested configurations for default SharePoint lists (English template).