Implement automatic suggestion, i.e. suggest() behaviour for Kendo UI Dropdown Similar to Combobox http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/web/combobox#configuration-suggest
Thanks for this sample, I will forward it to our devteam to contemplate the optionLabel + server filtering combination for improvement in future versions.
Jon, the dropdown supports server filtering, see this demo for reference: http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/dropdownlist/serverfiltering. Suggest functionality with auto-complete is supported only via the combobox widget.
I've created an example of how DropDownList's optionLabel creates a selectable item, when it probably shouldn't. http://dojo.telerik.com/OzOX
The automatic selection of the first item behaviour appears to work only when the optionLabel is not specified. When optionLabel is configured, hitting tab/enter on the input selects the first item - which is the optionLabel item. Maybe optionLabel should not be an item?