Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Programmer's Cookbook

Use an Auto-Complete Combo Box

Problem

You want to create a combo box that automatically completes what the user is typing based on the item list.

Solution

You can implement a basic auto-complete combo box by handling the KeyPress event.

Discussion

Many professional applications include some type of auto-complete control. This control might fill in values based on a list of recent selections (as Microsoft Excel does when entering cell values) or might display a drop-down list of near matches (as Internet Explorer does when typing a URL). You can create a basic auto-complete combo box by handling the KeyPress and TextChanged events, searching for matching items in the appropriate list, and then filling in the appropriate item. The important step is ...