Q:

JQueryUI Widget extend - subscribe to event inside "_create"

It was long time I was working with JQueryUI. I am overriding autocomplete widget and trying to internally subscribe to 'select' event but for some reason (probably doing it wrong) it never reaches 'select' handler when item in menu is selected:
$.widget( "myAutocomplete", $.ui.autocomplete, {
  _create: function(){
    var element = this.element;

    this._super();

    this._on(element, {
     'select': function (){ 
       // NOTE: never riches this 
      }
    });

  }
});

A:

There's no select event. select is an option which is provided for convenience; the actual name of the event is going to be myautocompleteselect:
$.widget( "my.myAutocomplete", $.ui.autocomplete, {
  _create: function(){
    var element = this.element;

    this._super();

    this._on(element, {
     'myautocompleteselect': function (){ 
       // will now reach this
      }
    });

  }
});

The relevant bit is in http://api.jqueryui.com/jQuery.widget/ under the Events section:

For most widgets, when the events are triggered, the names are prefixed with the widget name and lowercased.

Also, you were missing the namespace in the widget name ("namespace.myAutocomplete"). If you tried to use it like that you should get an error

