title: In Rails, What's the Best Way to Get Autocomplete that Shows Names but Uses IDs?
body: <p>I want to have a text box that the user can type in that shows an Ajax-populated list of my model's names, and then when the user selects one I want the HTML to save the model's ID, and use that when the form is submitted.</p>
  
  <p>I've been poking at the auto_complete plugin that got excised in Rails 2, but it seems to have no inkling that this might be useful. There's a <a href="http://railscasts.com/episodes/102-auto-complete-association" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Railscast episode</a> that covers using that plugin, but it doesn't touch on this topic. The comments <a href="http://railscasts.com/episodes/102-auto-complete-association#comment_37039" rel="nofollow noreferrer">point out that it could be an issue</a>, and <a href="http://model-ac.rubyforge.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">point to <code>model_auto_completer</code> as a possible solution</a>, which seems to work if the viewed items are simple strings, but the inserted text includes lots of junk spaces if (as I would like to do) you include a picture into the list items, <a href="http://model-ac.rubyforge.org/classes/ModelAutoCompleterHelper.html#M000003" rel="nofollow noreferrer">despite what the documentation says</a>.</p>
  
  <p>I could probably hack <code>model_auto_completer</code> into shape, and I may still end up doing so, but I am eager to find out if there are better options out there.</p>