Rails spinoffs - Jul 2005 - Autocomplete text field -- what''s it for?

This question is probably naive, as obviously lots of people make use of 
the autocomplete text field. They provide a great functionality to the 
_end_ _user_, they look nice and the interaction is intuitive. Still, I 
just don''t see how to use them sensibly. My major misgiving is that I 
only get text where I actually want a primary key. I''ve got my own 
implementation of this where I dynamically load a select element where 
the value attribute of each option contains the PK for the respective 
choice. Now, I''d like to switch to autocomplete text fields which are 
otherwise much nicer -- I just don''t see how I can meet my requirement 
for a PK.

Michael

-- 
Michael Schuerig                             Those who call the shots
mailto:michael@schuerig.de              Are never in the line of fire
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/           --Ani DiFranco, Not So Soft