How to remove/change JQuery UI Autocomplete Helper text?

It seems that this is a new feature in JQuery UI 1.9.0, because I used JQuery UI plenty of times before and this text never poped up.

Couldn't find anything related on the API documentation.

So using an basic autocomplete example with local source

$( "#find-subj" ).autocomplete({
    source: availableTags
});

When the search matches it shows this related helper text:

> '1 result is available, use up and down arrow keys to navigate.'

How can I disable it in a nice way, not by removing it with JQuery selectors.

I know this has been asnwered but just wanted to give an implementation example:

var availableTags = [
      "ActionScript",
      "AppleScript",
      "Asp",
      "BASIC",
      "C",
      "C++"
    ];

$("#find-subj").autocomplete({
    source: availableTags,
    messages: {
        noResults: 'no results',
	    results: function(amount) {
            return amount + 'results.'
        }
    }
});

This is used for accessibility, an easy way to hide it is with CSS:

.ui-helper-hidden-accessible { display:none; }

Or (see Daniel's comment bellow)

.ui-helper-hidden-accessible { position: absolute; left:-999em; }

The top answer here achieves the desired visual effect, but defeats the object of jQuery having ARIA support, and is a bit dickish to users who rely upon it! Those who've mentioned that jQuery CSS hides this for you are correct, and this is the style which does that:

.ui-helper-hidden-accessible {
	border: 0;
	clip: rect(0 0 0 0);
	height: 1px;
	margin: -1px;
	overflow: hidden;
	padding: 0;
	position: absolute;
	width: 1px;
}

Copy that into your stylesheet instead of removing the message, please :).

According to this blog:

> We now use ARIA live regions to announce when results become available > and how to navigate through the list of suggestions. The announcements > can be configured via the messages option, which has two properties: > noResults for when no items are returned and results for when at least > one item is returned. In general, you would only need to change these > options if you want the string to be written in a different language. > The messages option is subject to change in future versions while we > work on a full solution for string manipulation and > internationalization across all plugins. If you’re interested in the > messages option, we encourage you to just read the source; the > relevant code is at the very bottom of the autocomplete plugin and is > only a few lines. > > ... > > So how does this apply to the autocomplete widget? Well, now when you > search for an item, if you have a screen reader installed it will read > you something like “1 result is available, use up and down arrow keys > to navigate.”. Pretty cool, huh?

So if you go to github and look at the autocomplete source code, around line 571 you'll see where this is actually implemented.

Adding the jquery css also worked to remove the instructional text.

<link
 rel="stylesheet"
 href="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.0/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css" />

Since this is in there for accessibility reasons it's probably best to hide it with CSS.

However, I would suggest:

.ui-helper-hidden-accessible { position: absolute; left: -9999px; }

Rather than:

.ui-helper-hidden-accessible { display:none; }

As the former will hide the item off-screen, but still allow screen-readers to read it, whereas display:none does not.

Well, this question is a bit older, but the text does not show up at all when you include the according css file:

<link
 rel="stylesheet"
 href="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.0/themes/YOUR_THEME_HERE/jquery-ui.css" />

Of course you have to insert an actual theme instead of YOUR_THEME_HERE e.g. "smoothness"

Style it how the jQuery theme itself styles it. A lot of the other answers suggest including a whole stylesheet, but if you just want the relevant CSS, this is how it's done in http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.9.0/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css:

.ui-helper-hidden-accessible { 
    position: absolute !important; 
    clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px); 
    clip: rect(1px,1px,1px,1px);
}

The jQuery CSS .ui-helper-hidden-accessible is in the themes/base/core.css file. You should include this file (at a minimum) in your stylesheets for forward compatibility.

Adding this code right after the autocomplete in your script will push the annoying helper off the page, but the people using screen readers will still benefit from it:

$(document).ready(function() { //pushing the autocomplete helper out of the visible page
	$(".ui-helper-hidden-accessible").css({"position": "absolute", "left":"-999em"}) //{"display","none"} will remove the element from the page
});

I'm not a fan of manipulating CSS with JS but in this case I think it makes sense. The JS code created the problem in the first place, and the problem will be solved a few lines below in the same file. IMO this is better than solving the problem in a separate CSS file which might be edited by other people who don't know why the .ui-helper-hidden-accessible class was modified that way.