I'm developing a form, and using jQuery UI Autocomplete. When the user selects an option, I want the selection to pop into a span appended to the parent <p> tag. Then I want the field to clear rather than be populated with the selection.

I have the span appearing just fine, but I can't get the field to clear.

How do you cancel jQuery UI Autocomplete's default select action?

Here is my code:

var availableTags = ["cheese", "milk", "dairy", "meat", "vegetables", "fruit", "grains"];
$("[id^=item-tag-]").autocomplete({
    source: availableTags,

    select: function(){
        var newTag = $(this).val();
        $(this).val("");
        $(this).parent().append("<span>" + newTag + "<a href=\"#\">[x]</a> </span>");
    }
});

Simply doing $(this).val(""); doesn't work. What is maddening is that almost the exact function works fine if I ignore autocomplete, and just take action when the user types a comma as such:

$('[id^=item-tag-]').keyup(function(e) {
    if(e.keyCode == 188) {
        var newTag = $(this).val().slice(0,-1);
        $(this).val('');
        $(this).parent().append("<span>" + newTag + "<a href=\"#\">[x]</a> </span>");
    }
});

The real end result is to get autocomplete to work with multiple selections. If anybody has any suggestions for that, they would be welcome.