jQuery UI autocomplete: enforce selection from list without modifications

Question

I am using the custom binding provided in Autocomplete combobox with Knockout JS template / JQuery

I need to enforce that the user must select a value in the autocom

Answer 1

This is an older post, but I think it's mildly incomplete from a UX perspective, due to the focus issue (it doesn't make the change until focus is removed from the input, in this case '#artist', fairly annoying), so I would add:

   select: function (event, ui) {
        $("#artist").attr("disabled", false);
    }

so (let's assume it's a button we're trying to enable) that the user sees the enabled object immediately upon selection.