We have a number of places where one can select a patron as part of a process... but these selects vary wildly.. some are 'autocomplete', others allow for full search. I proposed using select2 consistently for the forms one's when reviewing bug 30578. It's worth investigating.
But then we will lose the ability to use the different filters?
So go the other way and for all forms ensure we fall through to a full search window if autocomplete isn't enough ;P The point is I'd like to see some consistency around this.
I don't know, I guess we should ask end users. Adding the complete forms will add more clicks (open popup, search, select).
I like the idea of auto-complete in combination with opening a full search if needed. But we might need to try it out to see if that works. I know that there have been complaints about auto-complete from very big library systems with a lot of similar user names as the pull downs usually limit to x visible entries.
Limiting pull downs would be a thing of the past if we use infinite scrolling in select2 which I've trialed in a few places. It's the filtering down further after doing an initial search which isn't so well handled. Must admit, I've never seen the need in real life myself, but Jonathan assures me theres a real need for these advanced secondary filters.