WP Engineer » Search

Change the Search-URL of WordPress

Frank — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:16:39 +0000

With WordPress it is easy to activate readable URLs. Only the search page is not affected by the setting yet, it comes with the syntax ?s as default. But there is a solution to change the URL as you wish.

The following example shows that even if you have permalinks activated, that the URL for the two searchterms wordpress and consulting looks like this: bueltge.de/?s=wordpress+consulting&submit=Search. With a little function, which communicates with the redirect, you can adjust the URL. In my case the URL with the two searchterms look like this with the following function: bueltge.de/search/wordpress+consulting.

Within WP-function wp_redirect I set the output, that the term search will be added to the home-url of your installation and added by the searchterms. There are many possibilities to adjust the URL.

function fb_change_search_url_rewrite() {
	if ( is_search() && ! empty( $_GET['s'] ) ) {
		wp_redirect( home_url( "/search/" ) . urlencode( get_query_var( 's' ) ) );
		exit();
	}
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'fb_change_search_url_rewrite' );

Yes, it is also possible via htacces rules, but the source is an example for custom solutions on an redirect.

# search redirect
# this will take anything in the query string, minus any extraneous values, and turn them into a clean working url
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \\?s=([^&]+) [NC]
RewriteRule ^$ /search/%1/? [NC,R,L]

I would recommend to put the function in a Plugin or in the functions.php of your theme. Any other or better ideas to accomplish this? Please let us know in the comment area.

Search Form in WP Nav Menu

Frank — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:41:15 +0000

The WP Nav Menu is very popular and WordPress users love to implement their content in the navigation that way. Many users also like to have a search field in their navigation. In this context I found some horrible written solutions to implement the search field in the navigation. That's why I thought I write a simple yet efficient solution to have the search field in your navigation.

For this solution I'm using the default search function - get_search_form(). If you use it on another spot as well, please pay attention to the stylesheet. Otherwise the following snippet is sufficient to implement the search field in your navigation.

This function and the call belongs into functions.php of the theme and the adjustment of the stylesheet in the according file of the theme, most of the time it is style.css.

function fb_add_search_box ( $items, $args ) {

	// only on primary menu
	if( 'primary' === $args -> theme_location )
		$items .= '' . get_search_form( FALSE ) . '';

	return $items;
}
add_filter( 'wp_nav_menu_items', 'fb_add_search_box', 10, 2 );

If you like to implement the search form only in a specific navigation; you just need to call the entry theme_location of the argument array. If it's the menu with the string n, then ... - an example:
if( 'primary' === $args -> theme_location )

The key of the call is defined in your theme, therefore easy to find in the backend, as you can see in the screenshot above. Have fun with it!

Exclude Posts and Pages in WordPress Search

Frank — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:57:51 +0000

Sometimes you don't like to display every post and page on search results. Today I like to show you how to filter the search in your frontend. Therefore I add a filter to the query of WordPress and exclude the according posts or pages of the search.

We exclude posts and pages by their ID, which we will give to an array and so exclude several posts and pages.

In our first code example the IDs are set in the array. The filter is only working if it is the search is_search and if you are not ! in the backend is_admin.

// search filter
function fb_search_filter($query) {

    if ( !$query->is_admin && $query->is_search) {
        $query->set('post__not_in', array(40, 9) ); // id of page or post
    }

    return $query;
}
add_filter( 'pre_get_posts', 'fb_search_filter' );

If you like to exclude the subpage of a page, then you can add it to the ID.

// search filter
function fb_search_filter($query) {

    if ( !$query->is_admin && $query->is_search) {
        $pages = array(2, 40, 9); // id of page or post
        // find children to id
        foreach( $pages as $page ) {
            $childrens = get_pages( array('child_of' => $page, 'echo' => 0) );
        }
        // add id to array
        for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($childrens); ++$i) {
            $pages[] = $childrens[$i]->ID;
        }
        $query->set('post__not_in', $pages );
    }

    return $query;
}
add_filter( 'pre_get_posts', 'fb_search_filter' );

There are many possibilities and I hope I was able to give you a starting point if you like to exclude posts and pages in your search.

Add Menus to the Admin Bar of WordPress

Frank — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:30:17 +0000

The new WordPress admin bar facilitates the access of backend and frontend to areas of the back end. Of course, this new control element of WordPress is expandable and can be adapted to the needs of the user. In some areas and for various needs, quick access to different areas is certainly interesting.

The newly created menus can be adapted as usual rights to the appropriate roles. A small example will demonstrate the integration.

Within the Admin Bar you can represent hierarchies, which are then coupled with a default Admin Bar with a mouse over effect. In the following example, a search on the WordPress Codex is integrated in the Admin bar. There are still things to do in terms of CSS, but I think this example points out some possibilities and can be used for your own ideas and requirements.

function wp_codex_search_form() {
    global $wp_admin_bar, $wpdb;

    if ( !is_super_admin() || !is_admin_bar_showing() )
        return;

    $codex_search = '

        
        
    

';

    /* Add the main siteadmin menu item */
    $wp_admin_bar->add_menu( array( 'id' => 'codex_search', 'title' => __( 'Search the Codex', 'textdomain' ), 'href' => FALSE ) );
    $wp_admin_bar->add_menu( array( 'parent' => 'codex_search', 'title' => $codex_search, 'href' => FALSE ) );
}
add_action( 'admin_bar_menu', 'wp_codex_search_form', 1000 );

The function add_menu() accepts certain parameters:

title - default false
href - default false,
parent - default false - pass the ID value for a submenu of that menu
id - defaults to a sanitized title value.
meta - default false - array of any of the following options: array( 'html' => '', 'class' => '', 'onclick' => '', target => '' );

Disable WordPress Search

Frank — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:53:44 +0000

Not always is the search in WordPress desired. The one or another application with WordPress doesn't need this feature. Even if it is an added value in my opinion. In some cases, it still shouldn't be displayed and so I have them deactivated with access to two hooks. For now, I can see no other place where you could access it in my applications and it works so smoothly.

The second call of the Hook get_search_form is just to take out the search from the frontend, so you should start the two hooks only if you are not in the admin: if ( !is_admin() ) .

If you set the variable $error to true, then you will be fowarded to the error page of the theme, if not, then you will remain on the page from where the search was started.

function fb_filter_query( $query, $error = true ) {

	if ( is_search() ) {
		$query->is_search = false;
		$query->query_vars[s] = false;
		$query->query[s] = false;

		// to error
		if ( $error == true )
			$query->is_404 = true;
	}
}

add_action( 'parse_query', 'fb_filter_query' );
add_filter( 'get_search_form', create_function( '$a', "return null;" ) );

Additions, improvements or criticism - let us know! The comment field is as always open, and the solution is delighted when it will be refined.

PHP Cross Reference of WordPress Source

Frank — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:44:31 +0000

Yesterday, we have post over the faster search for the WordPress codex WPLookup and today we give you a nice search for the reference of different WordPress versions from Joost de Valk.

Yoast write over his search tools:

This site provides a PHP Cross Reference of the WordPress and BBPress source, using PHPXref. The Trunk versions are updated from SVN every 30 minutes, and major new releases will be added here as soon as possible.

For future use, bookmark this search page, that'll load faster and has all the search options, or install one of the search plugins below!

PHP Cross Reference of WordPress from Joost de Valk on Vimeo

OpenSearch – Search Field For Mozilla And Internet Explorer With WordPress

Frank — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:37:06 +0000

Nowadays search field in your browser improved quite a bit, even IE supports OpenSearch format. But what is so great about OpenSearch and how easy it is to use with your WordPress installation has two aspects: WordPress comes already with OpenSearch and it's easy configurable with XML.

You just have to put a link in your theme and a xml file on your server to let the browser know that your blog supports the search field. So go ahead and improve your Plugin with little work and no use of a Plugin.

The following code should explain it. Adjust the syntax and link to the favicon and xml-file.

After you uploaded both files (favicon.ico und os.xml) add a link into the header.php of your theme. You can use the code one by one if you put os.xml in your root. After that it's possible to integrate your blog in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The declaration of each XML tag is well documented on the OpenSearch website.

for the head area in your template - header.php:

XML file:

Copy code, adjust and save as os.xml, then upload on your server.



	bueltge.de [by:ltge.de]
	Use bueltge.de to search on blog.
	
	info@bueltge.de
	bueltge.de [by:ltge.de] Weblog Search
	http://bueltge.de/favicon.ico
	Weblog WordPress Webdevelopment
	
	
	
	
	Frank Bueltge
	
	    Search data Copyright 2007, bueltge.de [by:ltge.de], All Rights Reserved
	
	open
	false
	de-DE
	UTF-8
	UTF-8

iGoogle Gadget for your Blog

Frank — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:56:43 +0000

Since my wife uses her own computer and explores all the possibilities, I got a lot questions and found some interesting tools because of her. One of them is iGoogle. Experimenting with it makes every newbie happy and it is very easy to configure.

I came to the idea to offer the blog as a gadget for iGoogle. Everybody who likes to do the same can use this tutorial and doesn't have to work through the Documentation of Google.

It's easy to create a iGoogle Gadget. But you should have knowledge in HTML and CSS. Since WordPress offers a standard search, I created the gadget so you can search in iGoogle on your blog.
Now we have another source where user can search. You can create the gadgets on every page. In this case it's a search for a WordPress blog, but it works for every other search too, you just have to know the name of the search field.

Preparing iGoogle gadget

The Gadget is only a referral to a page, like a frame, which shows the website. Because of that, we have to create a page, which get referred via XML. In the XML file are all data included which Google needs.

For this purpose I created a folder, where the data for the gadget will be available - iGoogle. You create a static page with search in your folder.

I equipped the search field with JavaScript, so the search field looks a little bit more attractive. The form gets the attribute action the address of the blog and the input-field must have the name s , since WordPress trigger the search because of this. Important is also the declaration of the attribute target="_top", otherwise the search would happen in the gadget window.

My index.php looks like this. Basically is a simple HTML page sufficient, your fantasies have no limits. But pay attention that your gadget could come off very small, depends on the resolution.




	WP Engineer · iGoogle Gadget
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	


	
		WP Engineer
		
			
				
				
			
		
	
	
		© WP Engineer mit iGoogle™ Gadget

Additional you create your CSS to design your search page as you want to. But don't forget the gadget could be very small!

Gadget XML Structure

You have to create a XML in your folder to give Google information.
Here is a following example, which you can adjust for your needs. Just upload and done.

This structure creates the data to activate the gadget, you can see it in the screenshot below.

Publish gadget

There is a Service available to share it with other user. You just have to let it know your address. Just put the address to your XML into the Service.

Your gadget is done and you can let all your friends know. How that works is explained in Google right after your registration. You also could easily create simple gadgets for websites. You will find the links after your login or you just use the documentation of API.

Expand Search Results In WordPress

Frank — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:35:05 +0000

The search function in WordPress is expandable by many WordPress Plugins. For every desire something. But in this post I like to introduce a little code snippet, which doesn’t give you any of these functionality but shows the user how many posts where found including their search query.

With this little but nice help, it is an additional value for the user, as I think.

How such a result looks like, displays the following screen shot. The code only shows the number of results and can be adjust as you like to of course.

To show the number of found posts, I just use a query of WordPress, quasi an extra loop. I define this loop new, and set that all (-1) entries should be used. If the parameter showposts won’t delivered with -1, WordPress will use the value, which settings are used for the output in the frontend.
The function wp_specialchars is not only used to filter, so there cannot be a XSS-leak but still include the search keyword in the output. The code is simple and straightforwarded – experiment with it. I’m happy if you have improvements or a better use for this.

Search Result

post_count;
	_e('Begriff: ');
	echo $key;
	_e(' — ');
	echo $count . ' ';
	_e('Artikel'); wp_reset_query(); ?>

The code should be put in search.php of the active theme. If this file isn’t existing, then the search function normally is in index.php. But to construct a better search for the user, I would recommend to use an own template.

In loop with `$wp_query->found_posts`

The above example should clarify the function, but it shouldn’t be used to use several loops in the template. Below you see a simple example for the template search.php, to show the number of search results with only one loop in your template.



	Search Results
found_posts; ?> Article