ASP.NET MVC HtmlHelper Extensions for jQuery AutoComplete

The jQuery JavaScript library has a rich repository of plugins. The AutoComplete plugin provides an easy mechanism to make any textbox perform like a searchable drop down list. While the code to provide a textbox with this autocomplete functionality is somewhat simple, it requires a little finessing to use it in place of a drop down list on an MVC view page. The HtmlHelper extension methods in this article will demonstrate how to achieve this behavior.