kendo-ui autocomplete extend - autocomplete

Question

I'm trying to extend the kendo-ui autocomplete control: I want the search start when te user hit enter, so basically I've to check the user input on keydown event.
I've tried to catch the keydown event with this code:
(function($) {
ui = kendo.ui,
Widget = ui.Widget
var ClienteText = ui.AutoComplete.extend({
init: function(element,options) {
var that=this;
ui.AutoComplete.fn.init.call(this, element, options);
$(this).bind('keydown',function(e){ console.log(1,e); });
$(element).bind('keydown',function(e){ console.log(2,e); });
},
options: {
[...list of my options...]
},
_keydown: function(e) {
console.log(3,e);
kendo.ui.AutoComplete.fn._keydown(e);
}
});
ui.plugin(ClienteText);
})(jQuery);
None of the binded events gets called, only the _keydown, and then I'm doing something wrong and cannot call the autocomplete "normal" keydown event.
I've seen a lot of examples that extend the base widget and then create a composite widget, but I'm not interested in doing that, I only want to add a functionality to an existing widget.
Can someone show me what I'm doing wrong?
Thank you!

Answer 1

What about avoiding the extend and take advantage of build in options and methods on the existing control : http://jsfiddle.net/vojtiik/Vttyq/1/
//create AutoComplete UI component
var complete = $("#countries").kendoAutoComplete({
dataSource: data,
filter: "startswith",
placeholder: "Select country...",
separator: ", ",
minLength: 50 // this is to be longer than your longest char
}).data("kendoAutoComplete");
$("#countries").keypress(function (e) {
if (e.which == 13) {
complete.options.minLength = 1; // allow search
complete.search($("#countries").val());
complete.options.minLength = 50; // stop the search again
}
});

Answer 2

This code actually work:
(function($) {
ui = kendo.ui,
ClienteText = ui.AutoComplete.extend({
init: function(element,options) {
ui.AutoComplete.fn.init.call(this, element, options);
$(element).bind('keydown',function(e){
var kcontrol=$(this).data('kendoClienteText');
if (e.which === 13) {
kcontrol.setDataSource(datasource_clientes);
kcontrol.search($(this).val());
} else {
kcontrol.setDataSource(null);
}
});
},
options: {
name: 'ClienteText',
}
});
ui.plugin(ClienteText);
})(jQuery);
but I don't know if it's the correct way to do it.