Place Autocomplete Overview

AI-generated Key Takeaways

• Place Autocomplete, a feature of the Places library within the Maps JavaScript API, provides a type-ahead search function similar to the Google Maps search field, matching place names, addresses, and plus codes.

• You can implement Place Autocomplete using either the Place Autocomplete Widget, which offers a pre-built UI, or the Place Autocomplete Data API, which allows for more customization.

• The Place Autocomplete Widget creates a text input with place predictions in a dropdown, returning details upon selection, ideal for a self-contained autocomplete interface on your webpage.

• The Place Autocomplete Data API enables programmatic retrieval of place predictions, granting greater flexibility for building custom user interfaces.

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Place Autocomplete is a feature of the Places library in the Maps JavaScript API. You can use autocomplete to give your applications the type-ahead-search behavior of the Google Maps search field. The autocomplete service can match on full words and substrings, resolving place names, addresses, and plus codes. Applications can therefore send queries as the user types, to provide on-the-fly place predictions.

You can add autocomplete to your app or web page using either the Place Autocomplete Widget, or the Place Autocomplete Data API.

You can add autocomplete to your app or web page using the Place Autocomplete Widget.

Place Autocomplete Widget

The Place Autocomplete Widget creates a text input field, supplies place predictions in a UI pick list, and returns place details in response to the user's selection. Use the Place Autocomplete Widget to embed a complete self-contained autocomplete user interface on your web page.

Place Autocomplete Data API

The Place Autocomplete Data API lets you fetch place predictions programmatically, providing a finer degree of control than is possible with the Place Autocomplete Widget. Use the Place Autocomplete Data API if you want to build a more comprehensive custom user interface for Place Autocomplete.