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It sure would be nice if the search box would auto-complete tags. So if you start typing "[sq" it would offer an autocomplete menu containing [sql], [sqlserver], etc.

This would especially useful as tag-limiting search is only available on-site, not via Google site:stackoverflow.com or similar.

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    Having done it for my website I can say that it's very time consuming to implement =) (I didn't find anything already done that I liked enough)
    – Andreas Bonini
    Apr 3, 2010 at 17:23
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    @Kop: I built it for an eCommerce system and did so in half a day. So it all depends on your backend I suppose...
    – The Unhandled Exception
    May 17, 2010 at 21:24
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    @Koper: However, there is already code (at least now there is) for filling in tags for asking/editing questions. How hard would it be to adapt that code to the search box?
    – MBraedley
    Mar 10, 2012 at 16:51
  • @MBr: I agree with you, but at the time I posted the comment above the feature was not implemented
    – Andreas Bonini
    Mar 10, 2012 at 18:33

3 Answers 3

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+50

I'd love if this was implemented so that if I type "[" in the search box, the same autocomplete stuff that fills in the tags for you when you ask a question, fills them in in the search box (preserving the [, of course, and possibly adding a ] at the end of each tag).

Since the autocompletion for the tag field in the ask question form is already implemented, this shouldn't be big at all. But it would make it a LOT easier to search (successfully) by tags. Only today I found a total of three questions tagged [integration-tests] and over 500 tagged [integration-testing] - with autocomplete I would've known how many hits each version would have even before i searched.

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  • I'd like this but similar to the way google does it with your [tag text in black and the autocomplete value(s) in grey.
    – Matthew
    Feb 4, 2012 at 15:10
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Actually, when you "Ask a question" on SO, at the title of the question, similar questions based on keywords pop out. So, the functionality does already works and exists. The auto-complete could inject the 'tags' only for performance. Great idea.

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I think this is a great idea. I just wanted to add that the dropdown menu should make it clear that the suggestions are tags, namely, they should have the css class .post-tag so they appear just as tags appear elsewhere on the site.

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