podio/jquery-mentions-input — pull request #37 by ddonahue99 (2012-05-03 16:09:22+00:00)
Title: Public method to add a mention to the end of the text box

I was having the same problem as reported in issue 33 - https://github.com/podio/jquery-mentions-input/issues/33

This branch allows you to add a reply via a button or some other action.

$("el").mentionsInput('addReply', value, id, type)