Active Search

This example actively searches a contacts database as the user enters text.

We start with a search input and an empty table:

<h3>
  Search Contacts
  <span class="htmx-indicator">
    <img src="/img/bars.svg"/> Searching...
   </span>
</h3>
<input class="form-control" type="search"
       name="search" placeholder="Begin Typing To Search Users..."
       hx-post="/search"
       hx-trigger="input changed delay:500ms, keyup[key=='Enter'], load"
       hx-target="#search-results"
       hx-indicator=".htmx-indicator">

<table class="table">
    <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>First Name</th>
      <th>Last Name</th>
      <th>Email</th>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody id="search-results">
    </tbody>
</table>

The input issues a POST to /search on the input event and sets the body of the table to be the resulting content.

We add the delay:500ms modifier to the trigger to delay sending the query until the user stops typing. Additionally, we add the changed modifier to the trigger to ensure we don’t send new queries when the user doesn’t change the value of the input (e.g. they hit an arrow key, or pasted the same value).

We can use multiple triggers by separating them with a comma, this way we add 2 more triggers:

• keyup[key=='Enter'] triggers once enter is pressed. We use event filters here to check for the key property in the KeyboardEvent object.
• load in order to show all results initially on load.

Finally, we show an indicator when the search is in flight with the hx-indicator attribute.

🔗Demo