Often you can solve with a foreign field, with an interface for add a new color. That's great if adding new color is a quite rare operation, if it happens too often and if the users are too stupid for remember how to add a color, it can be odd.

I propose an half way solution: a free text with autocomplete based on history values.

Add this to an CHtml We will use CJuiAutoComplete, what we need is a efficient way for perform searches.
 
 
Add this to your components/extensions:
 
 
```php class ZHtmlSearchAction  extends CHtmlAction { public function activeTextFieldHistory($model, $attribute, $htmlOptions=null)
 
$model;
 
public $attribute;
 
public $criteria=array('limit'=>5);
 

 
public function run()
 
    {   $mod=$model;
 
$attr=$attribute;
 
self::resolveNameID($mod,$attr,$htmlOptions 
 
        $criteria=new CDbCriteria($this->criteria);
 
        $criteria->addCondition("{$this->attribute} IS NOT NULL AND {$this->attribute} LIKE :param");
 
$route=array('/site/search', 'model'=>get_class($model), 'attribute'=>$attr);
 
if (isset($htmlOptions['filcriteria->group=$this->attribute;
 
        $criteria->order="COUNT({$this->attribute}) desc";
 
$criteria->params[':param']='%'.$_GET['term'])).'%';
 
  {
 
            $route['filter']=$htmlOptions['filter'];
 
            unset($htmlOptions['filter']); 
 
        }$results=array();
 
        foreach (CActiveRecord::model($this->model)->findAll($criteria) as $record)
 
            $results[]=$record->{$this->attribute}; 
 
 
 
        echo CJSON::encode($results);
 
   
 
$this->widget('zii.widgets.jui.CJuiAutoComplete', 
 
array('model'=>$model,
 
  'attribute'=>$attr, 
 
  'htmlOptions'=>$htmlOp}
 

 
}
 
 
```
 
 
Now we can configure a search action in our controller like that:
 
 
 
 
 
```php 
public function actions()
 
{
 
return array(
 
'searchCompany'=>array(
 
'class'=>'SearchActions',   'sourceUrl'=>$route));
 
}
 
}'model'=>'Request',
 
'attribute'=>'company',
 
)
 
);
 
} ```
 
 
You can pass additional configuration for the search (e.g, some more condition limiting the search in a project/group, sorting or whatever else)
 
 
And add this to your SiteController:
 
 
 
 
 
```php 
public function actionSearch()
 
{ using the property $criteria.
 
 
 
Now you can create your search textfield as:
 
$model=$_GET['model'];
 
$attribute= $_GET['attribute'];
 
$param=addslashes($_GET['term']);
 
$results=array();
 

 
$criteria=new CDbCriteria;
 
$criteria->condition="$attribute IS NOT NULL AND $attribute LIKE '%$param%' ";
 
if (isset($_GET['filter']))
 
$criteria->condition.=' AND '.$_GET['filter'];
 
$criteria->group=$attribute;
 
$criteria->order="COUNT($attribute) desc";
 
$criteria->limit=5;
 
$records=CActiveRecord::model($model)->findAll($criteria);
 

 
foreach ($records as $record)
 
$results[]=$record->$attribute;
 

 

 
echo CJSON::encode($results);
 

 
} 
 
 
```
 
 
 
Now you can create your search textfield as:
 
 
 
 
 
```php 
ZHtml::activeTextFieldHistory($model, 'color'); 
```php 
<?php $this->widget('zii.widgets.jui.CJuiAutoComplete', 
 
   array('model'=>$model,
 
   'attribute'=>'company', 
 
    'htmlOptions'=> array('maxlength'=>300, 'class'=>'text'),
 
   'sourceUrl'=>'searchCompany'));?> ``` This method is quite efficient and usually customer like it, because is based on the laziness of the users.