Integrating keyboard navigation

The Navigator API redirects users when opening an item using their keyboard.

Autocomplete is also available as an experimental widget in InstantSearch, making it easier to integrate into your search experience. To learn more, see the API reference for InstantSearch.js or React InstantSearch.

Keyboard navigation is essential to a satisfying autocomplete experience. This is one of the most important aspects of web accessibility: users should be able to interact with an autocomplete without using a mouse.

Autocomplete provides keyboard accessibility out of the box and lets you define how to visit results without leaving the keyboard.

The Navigator API defines three navigation schemes based on key combinations:

• In the current tab when pressing Enter
• In a new tab when pressing Cmd+Enter or Ctrl+Enter
• In a new window when pressing Shift+Enter

Usage

To activate keyboard navigation, you need to implement a getItemUrl function in each of your sources to provide the target URL. It tells the Navigator API which link to open on Enter.

JavaScript

autocomplete({
  // ...
  getSources() {
    return [
      {
        sourceId: "mySource",
        getItemUrl({ item }) {
          return item.url;
        },
        getItems() {
          return [
            // ...
          ];
        },
      },
    ];
  },
  // Default Navigator API implementation
  navigator: {
    navigate({ itemUrl }) {
      window.location.assign(itemUrl);
    },
    navigateNewTab({ itemUrl }) {
      const windowReference = window.open(itemUrl, "_blank", "noopener");

      if (windowReference) {
        windowReference.focus();
      }
    },
    navigateNewWindow({ itemUrl }) {
      window.open(itemUrl, "_blank", "noopener");
    },
  },
});

By default, the Navigator API uses the Location API (see default implementation in the preceding code example). If you’re relying on native document-based routing, this should work out of the box. If you’re using custom client-side routing, you can use the Navigator API to connect your autocomplete with it.

For example, if you’re using Autocomplete in a Gatsby website, you can use their navigate helper to go to internal pages without refreshing the page.

JavaScript

import { navigate } from "gatsby";
import { autocomplete } from "@algolia/autocomplete-js";

autocomplete({
  // ...
  navigator: {
    navigate({ itemUrl }) {
      navigate(itemUrl);
    },
  },
});

Reference

navigate · (params: { itemUrl: string, item: TItem, state: AutocompleteState<TItem> }) => void

The function called when a URL should open in the current page (when pressing Enter).

navigateNewTab · (params: { itemUrl: string, item: TItem, state: AutocompleteState<TItem> }) => void

The function called when a URL should open in a new tab (when pressing Ctrl+Enter or Cmd+Enter).

navigateNewWindow · (params: { itemUrl: string, item: TItem, state: AutocompleteState<TItem> }) => void

The function called when a URL should open in a new window (when pressing Shift+Enter).