Alpha Five Version 11 Feature Peek #22: Just because it ain't broke doesn't mean you can't fix it

There's an old saying that claims, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well, we heard that right before we started to work on Alpha Five Version 11 ... and completely ignored it. When it came to our auto-suggest and edit combo, we broke it, fixed it, and made it better. Let me show you what I mean.

First up is auto-suggest. The new feature here is adding multiple values to a field. You might recognize this from Gmail. When you begin to type a contact's name in the "to" line of your message, you are provided with a list of matching suggestions. Google also provides the comma that separates each address, so you can enter more than one.

Selwyn starts this video with instructions on how to enable this feature. In design mode, you'll see a small dialogue box that says "send to," which identifies the function of the dialogue. But if you switch over to working preview, you'll see that it doesn't allow for multiple values. Going into the auto-suggest builder will reveal that there are other properties that can make it happen.

These properties are pretty self-explanatory. You'll obviously want to check "allow multiple selections," and choose a comma as the "multiple value separator." To pull it all together, check the box labeled "auto add separator after suggestion," which will smoothly insert your comma in between values.

Now it's on to the edit combo. Selwyn has added another dialogue component to the control, so he'll start there. He chooses multiple cities in his search field, and then switches over to design mode to show how he turned on multiple selections.

Again, he'll go into the builder for this feature and define the function, as well as check the city and state boxes in "available fields." You can also customize the drop-down list that will show up in your field by editing the HTML with a pre-existing Alpha template.

Watch the video for more details, and I hope that next time someone advises you, "if ain't broke, don't fix it," you'll know better!