Enhancing Search Functionality in WordPress Themes
Posted on 17th June 2023
As a WordPress theme developer, you may need to enhance the search functionality of your themes. This can be done by adding custom search forms and custom search results pages.
Adding a Custom Search Form
The first thing you need to do is add a custom search form to your theme. This can be done by adding the following code to your theme’s header.php file:
This will output the default WordPress search form. If you want to customize the search form, you can do so by creating a file called searchform.php in your theme’s directory.
Creating a Custom Search Results Page
The next thing you need to do is create a custom search results page. This can be done by creating a file called search.php in your theme’s directory.
The search.php file should start with the following code:
This code will include the header.php file and output the header of the search results page.
After the header, you will need to add the following code to display the search form:
Next, you will need to add the following code to display the search results:
<?php
/* translators: %s: search query. */
printf( esc_html__( 'Search Results for: %s', 'twentynineteen' ), '' . get_search_query() . '' );
?>
This code will display the search results.
Finally, you will need to add the following code to include the footer.php file:
<?php
get_footer();
?>
This will output the footer of the search results page.
Enhancing Search Functionality in WordPress Themes
Most WordPress themes come with a search bar somewhere on the front-end of the site. However, the default search functionality in WordPress is often lacking, returning irrelevant results or no results at all. In this article, we will show you how to enhance search functionality in WordPress themes.
1. Use a Custom Search Form
The first thing you need to do is to create a custom search form. You can do this by creating a new file called searchform.php and adding the following code to it:
<form role="search" method="get" class="search-form" action="”>
This code will create a basic search form with a text input field and a submit button. You can style this form using CSS to match your theme’s design.
2. Use a Custom Query Variable
Next, you need to add a new query variable to your search form. This will tell WordPress to use a different search algorithm when this query variable is present. Add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:
function my_search_query( $query ) {
if ( $query->is_search() && isset( $_GET[‘search_algorithm’] ) && $_GET[‘search_algorithm’] == ‘advanced’ ) {
$query->set( ‘search_algorithm’, ‘advanced’ );
}
return $query;
}
add_action( ‘pre_get_posts’, ‘my_search_query’ );
This code will add a new query variable called search_algorithm to your search form. When this variable is present, WordPress will use a different search algorithm.
3. Use a Custom Search Algorithm
Finally, you need to tell WordPress to use a different search algorithm when the search_algorithm query variable is present. Add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:
function my_search_algorithm( $query ) {
if ( $query->is_search() && isset( $_GET[‘search_algorithm’] ) && $_GET[‘search_algorithm’] == ‘advanced’ ) {
// Use a custom search algorithm here
}
return $query;
}
add_action( ‘pre_get_posts’, ‘my_search_algorithm’ );
This code will use a custom search algorithm when the search_algorithm query variable is present. You can use any search algorithm you want here. For example, you could use a search algorithm that searches for posts by their ID, title, or content.
4. Conclusion
In this article, we have shown you how to enhance search functionality in WordPress themes. We have also shown you how to use a custom search form, query variable, and search algorithm.
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Enhancing Search Functionality in WordPress Themes
One way to enhance the search functionality in your WordPress theme is to allow visitors to search by category. By default, the WordPress search only searches posts and pages, but you can add a search by category feature by editing the search form template.
First, you need to add a dropdown menu of all the categories to the search form. You can do this by using the wp_dropdown_categories() function:
Next, you need to add a hidden field to the search form with the name “cat”. This will tell WordPress to search the selected category:
<input type="hidden" name="cat" value="term_id ); ?>” />
Finally, you need to modify the search query to search the selected category. You can do this by hooking into the pre_get_posts action and changing the ‘cat’ query var:
function my_search_query( $query ) {
if ( $query->is_search() && $query->is_main_query() && isset( $_GET[‘cat’] ) ) {
$query->set( ‘cat’, $_GET[‘cat’] );
}
}
add_action( ‘pre_get_posts’, ‘my_search_query’ );
Now when a visitor searches your site, they will be able to select a category to search. This can be a great way to help visitors find what they’re looking for on your site.
