I'm using twitter's typeahead.js 0.9.3 and it seems my suggestions are not styled at all.

I'm getting this:

Instead of something like this: (taken from examples page)

JavaScript enabling typeahead:

$('.search-typeahead').typeahead({
    name: 'videos',
    remote: {
        url: '/api/v1/internal/videos/typeahead?text=%QUERY'
    }
});

HTML input element:

<input type="text" value="" id="search_keywords" class="no-clear search-typeahead"/>

Additional Notes:

The site I'm working on has jQuery 1.10.1 and does not use twitter bootstrap. There is a bunch of CSS that I didn't write and thus am not familiar with which I fear is interfering, however it seems the plugin adds its own styles (there is no accompanying .css file) so shouldn't it theoretically override things? I'm confused why my styles work, but those added by the plugin do not, resulting in an suggestions with transparent backgrounds, no borders, etc.

I'm using twitter's typeahead.js 0.9.3 and it seems my suggestions are not styled at all.

I'm getting this:

Instead of something like this: (taken from examples page)

JavaScript enabling typeahead:

$('.search-typeahead').typeahead({
    name: 'videos',
    remote: {
        url: '/api/v1/internal/videos/typeahead?text=%QUERY'
    }
});

HTML input element:

<input type="text" value="" id="search_keywords" class="no-clear search-typeahead"/>

Additional Notes:

The site I'm working on has jQuery 1.10.1 and does not use twitter bootstrap. There is a bunch of CSS that I didn't write and thus am not familiar with which I fear is interfering, however it seems the plugin adds its own styles (there is no accompanying .css file) so shouldn't it theoretically override things? I'm confused why my styles work, but those added by the plugin do not, resulting in an suggestions with transparent backgrounds, no borders, etc.

• javascript
• css
• typeahead.js

11 Answers 11

So looking into the docs I now see:

By default, the dropdown menu created by typeahead.js is going to look ugly and you'll want to style it to ensure it fits into the theme of your web page.

My solution was thus to copy the styling from the example I wished to replicate:

.tt-query, /* UPDATE: newer versions use tt-input instead of tt-query */
.tt-hint {
    width: 396px;
    height: 30px;
    padding: 8px 12px;
    font-size: 24px;
    line-height: 30px;
    border: 2px solid #ccc;
    border-radius: 8px;
    outline: none;
}

.tt-query { /* UPDATE: newer versions use tt-input instead of tt-query */
    box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
}

.tt-hint {
    color: #999;
}

.tt-menu { /* UPDATE: newer versions use tt-menu instead of tt-dropdown-menu */
    width: 422px;
    margin-top: 12px;
    padding: 8px 0;
    background-color: #fff;
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
    border-radius: 8px;
    box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
    max-height: 300px;
    overflow-y: auto;
}

.tt-suggestion {
    padding: 3px 20px;
    font-size: 18px;
    line-height: 24px;
}

.tt-suggestion.tt-is-under-cursor { /* UPDATE: newer versions use .tt-suggestion.tt-cursor */
    color: #fff;
    background-color: #0097cf;

}

.tt-suggestion p {
    margin: 0;
}

So, the following styles will give you this look & feel. It's based on the CSS I extracted from the official Typeahead examples website.

CSS:

.tt-query {
  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
     -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
          box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
}

.tt-hint {
  color: #999
}

.tt-menu {    /* used to be tt-dropdown-menu in older versions */
  width: 422px;
  margin-top: 4px;
  padding: 4px 0;
  background-color: #fff;
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
  -webkit-border-radius: 4px;
     -moz-border-radius: 4px;
          border-radius: 4px;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
     -moz-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
          box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
}

.tt-suggestion {
  padding: 3px 20px;
  line-height: 24px;
}

.tt-suggestion.tt-cursor,.tt-suggestion:hover {
  color: #fff;
  background-color: #0097cf;

}

.tt-suggestion p {
  margin: 0;
}

This assumes your input will have the form-control class. For my example, it's like this:

<input class="typeahead form-control" type="text" placeholder="States of USA">

https://github.com/bassjobsen/typeahead.js-bootstrap-css/blob/master/typeaheadjs.css

The other ones didn't look great, this one looks most like Bootstrap.

Typeahead has changed some of their class names and the above examples are now incorrect.

For instance:

• Instead of .tt-suggestion.tt-is-under-cursor use .tt-suggestion:hover
• Instead of .tt-dropdown-menu, use .tt-menu

If you want to borrow the style from the examples page, you can see their stylesheet here:

.typeahead,
.tt-query,
.tt-hint {
  width: 396px;
  height: 30px;
  padding: 8px 12px;
  font-size: 24px;
  line-height: 30px;
  border: 2px solid #ccc;
  -webkit-border-radius: 8px;
     -moz-border-radius: 8px;
          border-radius: 8px;
  outline: none;
}

.typeahead {
  background-color: #fff;
}

.typeahead:focus {
  border: 2px solid #0097cf;
}

.tt-query {
  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
     -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
          box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
}

.tt-hint {
  color: #999
}

.tt-menu {
  width: 422px;
  margin: 12px 0;
  padding: 8px 0;
  background-color: #fff;
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
  -webkit-border-radius: 8px;
     -moz-border-radius: 8px;
          border-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
     -moz-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
          box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
}

.tt-suggestion {
  padding: 3px 20px;
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 24px;
}

.tt-suggestion:hover {
  cursor: pointer;
  color: #fff;
  background-color: #0097cf;
}

.tt-suggestion.tt-cursor {
  color: #fff;
  background-color: #0097cf;

}

.tt-suggestion p {
  margin: 0;
}

Here's a Demo in Stack Snippets

var substringMatcher = function(strs) {
  return function findMatches(q, cb) {
    var matches, substringRegex;
 
    // an array that will be populated with substring matches
    matches = [];
 
    // regex used to determine if a string contains the substring `q`
    substrRegex = new RegExp(q, 'i');
 
    // iterate through the pool of strings and for any string that
    // contains the substring `q`, add it to the `matches` array
    $.each(strs, function(i, str) {
      if (substrRegex.test(str)) {
        matches.push(str);
      }
    });
 
    cb(matches);
  };
};
 
var states = ['Alabama', 'Alaska', 'Arizona', 'Arkansas', 'California',
  'Colorado', 'Connecticut', 'Delaware', 'Florida', 'Georgia', 'Hawaii',
  'Idaho', 'Illinois', 'Indiana', 'Iowa', 'Kansas', 'Kentucky', 'Louisiana',
  'Maine', 'Maryland', 'Massachusetts', 'Michigan', 'Minnesota',
  'Mississippi', 'Missouri', 'Montana', 'Nebraska', 'Nevada', 'New Hampshire',
  'New Jersey', 'New Mexico', 'New York', 'North Carolina', 'North Dakota',
  'Ohio', 'Oklahoma', 'Oregon', 'Pennsylvania', 'Rhode Island',
  'South Carolina', 'South Dakota', 'Tennessee', 'Texas', 'Utah', 'Vermont',
  'Virginia', 'Washington', 'West Virginia', 'Wisconsin', 'Wyoming'
];
 
$('.typeahead').typeahead({
  hint: true,
  highlight: true,
  minLength: 1
},
{
  name: 'states',
  source: substringMatcher(states)
});

.typeahead,
.tt-query,
.tt-hint {
  width: 396px;
  height: 30px;
  padding: 8px 12px;
  font-size: 24px;
  line-height: 30px;
  border: 2px solid #ccc;
  -webkit-border-radius: 8px;
     -moz-border-radius: 8px;
          border-radius: 8px;
  outline: none;
}

.typeahead {
  background-color: #fff;
}

.typeahead:focus {
  border: 2px solid #0097cf;
}

.tt-query {
  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
     -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
          box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
}

.tt-hint {
  color: #999
}

.tt-menu {
  width: 422px;
  margin: 12px 0;
  padding: 8px 0;
  background-color: #fff;
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
  -webkit-border-radius: 8px;
     -moz-border-radius: 8px;
          border-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
     -moz-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
          box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
}

.tt-suggestion {
  padding: 3px 20px;
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 24px;
}

.tt-suggestion:hover {
  cursor: pointer;
  color: #fff;
  background-color: #0097cf;
}

.tt-suggestion.tt-cursor {
  color: #fff;
  background-color: #0097cf;

}

.tt-suggestion p {
  margin: 0;
}

<link href="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.4/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/3.3.5/js/bootstrap.js"></script>
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/typeahead.js/0.11.1/typeahead.jquery.js"></script>


<div class="container" >
  <input class="typeahead form-control" type="text" placeholder="States of USA" />
</div>

This is the code that works for me:

.twitter-typeahead .tt-query,
.twitter-typeahead .tt-hint {
    margin-bottom: 0;
}
.tt-hint {
    display: block;
    width: 100%;
    padding: 8px 12px;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 1.428571429;
    color: #999;
    vertical-align: middle;
    background-color: #ffffff;
    border: 1px solid #cccccc;
    border-radius: 4px;
    -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
          box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
    -webkit-transition: border-color ease-in-out 0.15s, box-shadow ease-in-out 0.15s;
          transition: border-color ease-in-out 0.15s, box-shadow ease-in-out 0.15s;
}
.tt-dropdown-menu {
    min-width: 160px;
    margin-top: 2px;
    padding: 5px 0;
    background-color: #ffffff;
    border: 1px solid #cccccc;
    border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15);
    border-radius: 4px;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 6px 12px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.175);
          box-shadow: 0 6px 12px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.175);
    background-clip: padding-box;

}
.tt-suggestion {
    display: block;
    padding: 3px 20px;
}
.tt-suggestion.tt-is-under-cursor {
    color: #fff;
    background-color: #dfdfdf;
}
.tt-suggestion.tt-is-under-cursor a {
    color: #fff;
}
.tt-suggestion p {
    margin: 0;
}

Since i have a less environment with BS3 included i took Zugwalt css code (placed it in a more readable hierarchy) and filled it with styling from bs3's dropdown-menu. It's simply following your (customized) variables.

    .twitter-typeahead {
      display: block;
      width: 100%; //BS 3 needs this to inherit this for children

      .tt-query,
      .tt-hint {
        margin-bottom: 0;
      }

      .tt-dropdown-menu {
        z-index: @zindex-dropdown;
        min-width: 326px;
        padding: 5px 0;
        margin: 2px 0 0; // override default ul
        font-size: @font-size-base;
        text-align: left; // Ensures proper alignment if parent has it changed (e.g., modal footer)
        background-color: @dropdown-bg;
        border: 1px solid @dropdown-fallback-border; // IE8 fallback
        border: 1px solid @dropdown-border;
        border-radius: @border-radius-base;
        .box-shadow(0 6px 12px rgba(0, 0, 0, .175));
        background-clip: padding-box;

        .tt-suggestions {

          .tt-suggestion {
            padding: 3px 12px;
            font-weight: normal;
            line-height: @line-height-base;
            color: @dropdown-link-color;
            white-space: nowrap; // prevent links from randomly breaking onto new lines
          }

          .tt-suggestion.tt-cursor {
            color: @dropdown-link-hover-color;
            background-color: @dropdown-link-hover-bg;
          }

          .tt-suggestion p {
            margin: 0;
          }
        }
      }
    }

Here's an scss version that relies on the bootstrap variables/declarations as much as possible. Unfortunately you cannot extend nested selectors in sass, otherwise it would be smaller:

@mixin typeahead-active() {
  // mimics  @extend .dropdown-menu > .active > a;
  color: $dropdown-link-active-color;
  text-decoration: none;
  outline: 0;
  background-color: $dropdown-link-active-bg;
}

//https://github.com/corejavascript/typeahead.js/blob/master/doc/jquery_typeahead.md#class-names
span.twitter-typeahead {

  // this is the suggested matches dropdown
  .tt-menu {
    @extend .dropdown-menu;
  }

  .tt-hint {
    color: #999
  }

  // Added to suggestion elements.
  .tt-suggestion {

    // mimic .dropdown-menu > li > a
    padding: 3px 20px;
    line-height: $line-height-base;

    // Added to suggestion element when menu cursor moves to said suggestion.
    &.tt-cursor {
      @include typeahead-active;
    }

    // Hover/focus on suggestion
    &:hover,
    &:focus {
      @include typeahead-active;
    }

    p {
      margin: 0;
    }
  }

  .input-group & {
    display: block !important;
    .tt-dropdown-menu {
      top: 32px !important;
    }
  }
  .input-group.input-group-lg & {
    .tt-dropdown-menu {
      top: 44px !important;
    }
  }
  .input-group.input-group-sm & {
    .tt-dropdown-menu {
      top: 28px !important;
    }
  }
}

If you are using Bootstrap 4, it's enough to do this:

span.twitter-typeahead
  width: 100%

.tt-input
  box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075)

.tt-menu
  @extend .list-group
  box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2)
  width: 100%

.tt-suggestion
  @extend .list-group-item

.tt-selectable
  @extend .list-group-item-action

In my particular case absolute positioning solved it. Relative positioning was pushing down other bootstrap elements when the suggestion list (tt-menu) was open.

.tt-menu { 
    z-index: 2147483647;
    position: absolute;    
}

You can add this to the above answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/26934329/1225421

What worked for me:

.typeahead, .twitter-typeahead, .tt-hint, .tt-input, .tt-menu { width: 100%; height:auto; }

Adding height:auto; especially in "tt-hint".

Another way to get the styling is after going to the typeahead website, select see examples below the large search bar then type a letter on any of the suggestion boxes for the examples.

From there, right-click on one of the suggestions that show up under the search bar and choose "View page source". This shows you all the HTML, CSS, and JS used. At the very top of the HTML you now see, click on the link to the stylesheet.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="../css/examples.css">

This shows you all the CSS used.

The following chunk of code helped me out, but you're free to use as much of it as you want.

.typeahead {
  background-color: #fff;
}

.typeahead:focus {
  border: 2px solid #0097cf;
}

.tt-query {
  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
     -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
          box-shadow: inset 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075);
}

.tt-hint {
  color: #999
}

.tt-menu {
  width: 422px;
  margin: 12px 0;
  padding: 8px 0;
  background-color: #fff;
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
  -webkit-border-radius: 8px;
     -moz-border-radius: 8px;
          border-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
     -moz-box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
          box-shadow: 0 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.2);
}

.tt-suggestion {
  padding: 3px 20px;
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 24px;
}

.tt-suggestion:hover {
  cursor: pointer;
  color: #fff;
  background-color: #0097cf;
}

.tt-suggestion.tt-cursor {
  color: #fff;
  background-color: #0097cf;

}

.tt-suggestion p {
  margin: 0;
}

TLDR: https://twitter.github.io/typeahead.js/css/examples.css