Thread

Hi guys,

I have a form which contains a simple keyword text field search, just follows the documentation on the site, here is the main exerpt

{exp:search:advanced_form result_page="search/results"}
<table cellpadding='4' cellspacing='6' border='0' width='100%'>
<tr>
<td>
<fieldset class="fieldset">
<legend>{lang:search_by_keyword}</legend>

<input type="text" class="input" maxlength="100" size="40" name="keywords" />

</fieldset>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class='searchSubmit'>
<input type='submit' value='Search' class='submit' />
</div>

{/exp:search:advanced_form}

Code works fine but I now want to replace the text field with a dynamic dropdown of people who work for a company. The options in the dropdown are driven by channel entries

{exp:search:advanced_form result_page="search/results"}
<table cellpadding='4' cellspacing='6' border='0' width='100%'>
<tr>
<td>
<fieldset class="fieldset">

<div class="default">
<select id="search4">
<option>By Name</option>
{exp:channel:entries channel="people" orderby="title" sort="asc" validate="true" dynamic="no"}
<option value="{title}"><a href="http://{page_uri}">{title}</a></option>
{/exp:channel:entries} 
</select>
</div>

</fieldset>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class='searchSubmit'>
<input type='submit' value='Search' class='submit' />
</div>

{/exp:search:advanced_form}

The dropdown is populated with the list of people but when you try search, you get an error stating

You did not submit a search term

Any suggestions as to how I need to tweak this code to allow me submit a valid search for the person selected from the dropdown?

Thanks

Aidan

Hi Aidan,

Sure thing!

You need to name the select “keywords” like so:

<select id="search4" name="keywords">
<option>By Name</option>
{exp:channel:entries channel="people" orderby="title" sort="asc" validate="true" dynamic="no"}
<option value="{title}"><a href="http://{page_uri}">{title}</a></option>
{/exp:channel:entries} 
</select>

That way you will submit the value of “option” as a “keyword” to be searched. Otherwise ExpressionEngine has no idea what you want to search for.

Let me know if that works out OK.

Cheers,

Thanks Dan,

That worked perfect. I suppose there is always the follow-on question!

There is also a requirement for a combined search page. The client would like to have a combined keyword text field and a dynamic dropdown search - would that be possible?

To put it in context, you would have a normal text field plus a dropdown with the main divisions in the company (driven by channel entries) so for example, you want to run a combined search for the keyword “services” in the “facilities” division of the company.

If I set the code like follows:

{exp:search:advanced_form result_page="search/results"}
<table cellpadding='4' cellspacing='6' border='0' width='100%'>
<tr>
<td>
<fieldset class="fieldset">

<div class="default"><input type="text" class="input" maxlength="100" size="40" name="keywords" /></div>

<div class="default">
<select id="search4">
<option>By Division</option>
{exp:channel:entries channel="divisions" orderby="title" sort="asc" validate="true" dynamic="no"}
<option value="{title}"><a href="http://{page_uri}">{title}</a></option>
{/exp:channel:entries} 
</select>
</div>

</fieldset>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class='searchSubmit'>
<input type='submit' value='Search' class='submit' />
</div>

{/exp:search:advanced_form}

I tried this code and it picked up on the keyword value but not the dropdown selection.

I assume it can only have one field with the value “keywords”?

Thanks

Aidan

Hi Aidan,

You can limit by channels using this code in your form:

<select id="channel_id" name='channel_id[]' class='multiselect' size='12' multiple='multiple'>
                        {channel_names}
                </select>

That builds a multislect to pick your channel to limit the keyword to.

Does that help?

Cheers,

Thanks Dan,

That code snippet works but not quite what I was looking for.

I have a channel called “Divisions” and I have a number of channel entries for this channel. They are called Sales, Technical, HR etc. Its all the high level divisions with the company.
I then have a standard keyword text field search. So I would like to run a combined search that searches for a specific “keyword” in a particular division of the company.

Thanks

Aidan

Ahhh - OK - So you really want to limit the keyword down to an entry level, correct?

The Search Module doesn’t support that fine-grained. The best you could do would be to limit the keywords to the Divisions channel.

Searching within an entry would be something perhaps jQuery/JavaScript would be keen at. How large/long are the division focused entries?

Cheers,

Hi Dan,

Tks for the response. I am going to try Solspace’s Super Search to see if it allows me achieve the combined search I need.

Tks

Aidan

Hi Aidan,

Best of luck to you. As far as I know, Super Search and Low Search both have the same limitation as the included Search module: you can’t specify a particular entry to search within. They all filter down to the channel level, once in the channel, all entries in that channel will be searched.

That was the reason I suggested an “in page” search solution - the search facilities available to ExpressionEngine can’t be filtered to the entry level.

Is there anything else I can assist you with?

~