Set Search to show all content when search field is empty

The CMS Questions
1

Hello,
I followed the search tutorial to set up a basic implementation of the search tool.

I’d like to ask how would you set it that, as a default value, the search result would show all content when nothing is written in the search bar.

I think that there’s something to do with the $results variable in the search.php’s controller?

<?php

return function($site, $pages, $page) {

  $query   = get('q');
  $results = page('search')->index()->visible()->search($query, 'title|text');
  $results = $results->paginate(20);

  return array(
    'query'      => $query,
    'results'    => $results,
    'pagination' => $results->pagination()
  );

};

Thanks!

UPDATE:

OK, so I thought doing something like:

  1. check if the url contains this string ?q=
  2. then hide the foreach loop showing all page’s content and show only the foreach loop with the filtered results produced by search.

Otherwise:
hide the foreach loop outputted by search and show only the one with all page’s content.

So I tried to go with an if clauses like this

<?php if($page->url() *= '?q='): ?>

but it throws back the following error

Can't use method return value in write context

How would you do it?

2

Here is an example.

You first define the result if no query is set, then you check if query is set:

<?php

return function($site, $pages, $page) {

  // return all children if nothing is selected
  $results = $page->children()->visible();
  $query   = get('q');

  if($query) {
    $results = $results->search($query);
  }

  $results = $results->paginate(5);
  $pagination = $results->pagination();

  return compact ('results', 'pagination', 'query');

};
1 Like
3

Amazing!

I was implementing the if-rule for showing a message when no result is found, and now everything works like a charm.

Thank you!

4

Wondering about all the search functions’ options and:

I merged search with the filter by tag function on the same page. It works, only that if I first click on a tag, which brings me to a page with this kind of url

site.dev/tags:example

and then I enter a search query, the url is updated to

site.dev/tags:example?q=test

which makes it impossible to get a proper result.

If I invert the action’s order, so first I search for something and then I filter the content by clicking on a tag, when I click on a tag the url is built from a clean base-url.

Is there a way to clear the url also for every new search query? Not only the part after =, but the full thing?

?q=eeaa

Or, alternative approach, would you suggest to:

  • keep a template only for tag-filtering, with a searchbar to insert a new query
  • but when click enter for the search to happen, the button brings to a different template only used for search purposes? Using maybe a route?

Curious to hear which kind of approach you would take!

5

I can’t reproduce this, I’m afraid.

With a URL like this

http://localhost/kirby/blog/tag:green?q=extending

And a controller like this:

<?php

return function($site, $pages, $page) {

  $perpage  = $page->perpage()->int();
  $query   = get('q');
  $articles = $page->children()
                   ->visible();
  if($query) {
    $articles = $articles
                     ->visible()->search($query);
  }
  if($tag = param('tag')) {
    $articles = $articles
                     ->visible()->filterBy('tags', $tag, ',');
  } 


  return [
    'articles'   => $articles,
  ];

};

I get perfectly valid results.

6

You are right, the filter function works perfectly when populated with enough, varied, content to search through.

Still, is there a way to reset the url to its basic root value, whenever searching through a query?

I like the options to refine a search function by using both the searchbar and tags, but I might as well try to test how it feels when using either one or the other at any time.

7

If you set the action attribute to the base URL, there will be no parameters:

<form class="job-form form-inline" method="GET" action="<?= $page->url() ?>">
    <input type="text" class="fsearch" name="q" id="q" placeholder="" value="<?php isset($query)? $query: ""; ?>">
    <button class="search-button" type="button" onclick="this.form.submit()"></button>
</form>
1 Like
8

Great, thank you once again!

9

Yes, your search form should have an action attribute that points to the “clean” URL.

<form action="/">
 <label>Search <input name="q"></label>
</form>

I suspect that currently your form has no action attribute, so the action URL defaults to the current URL, and only the query string (the part after ?) is modified.

1 Like