Search button in menu

[Dave Rado]

Hi

I love the Google mini drop-down search box on the Search menu on the home page, but I can't find any documentation about how to set this up. Is this documented anywhere? Also, does one have to pay Google to use their search engine in this way?

Dave

[John]

The Search option would have brought up numerous posts on this subject. However, try this one for a start.

[Andy]

The Milonic Google search is from a dedicated machine (Google Mini) that we own and paid Google serious money for.

It's a 1U server box that you buy out right: http://www.googlestore.com/appliance/pr ... sp?catid=3

As John said, a search will provide all sorts - you can also view the milonic.com's menu by viewing this: http://milonic.com/menu_data.php - toward the bottom is the search menu that you can use

[Dave Rado]

I'm confused - if I can't use Google mini without paying serious money, what search engine would I be using if I used the code you posted of:

aI("text=`<FORM METHOD=GET ACTION=/search.php name=search style='margin:0px;'><table><tr><td class=backW>Search Milonic</td></tr><tr><td class=backW><input name=q size=11></td></tr><tr><td><input type=submit value=Search></td></tr></table></form>`;type=form;align=center;onbgcolor=;onborder=;");

I don't understand any of the above code, what it's doing, where it's defining the search engine to be used, what or where "search.php" is, where the class "backW" is defined - in short, please could you break it down for me? I am not familiar with setting up search forms, so I need to be treated as a complete beginner in this respect.

Dave

[John]

The search engine Andy is using here is specific to the Milonic site only. It does its own crawling, indexing, etc., and is, as he explained, literally a machine contained within its own box along with the other Milonic servers. The code Andy posted was just an example of how a form would look when coded for the menu. He did not mean to imply that you should use that exact code for your site (you can't).

As to your questions...

/search.php - standard HTML, defines a file located on the Milonic servers at the root directory level.

class "backW" - defined in the css - since Andy specified that the page the form was on is http://milonic.com/menu_data.php, by looking at the source for that page you would find the path to the css file, which would give you the above definition.

What we actually need is the HTML for the search engine you want to use on your site. Most engines provide this code on their home pages. Once you have that we can put it into the proper format.

[Dave Rado]

/search.php - standard HTML, defines a file located on the Milonic servers at the root directory level.

I know but I assumed (wrongly) he must have meant that Milonic had provided me with a search.php file, and I couldn't find one in my downloaded files.

class "backW" - defined in the css - since Andy specified that the page the form was on is http://milonic.com/menu_data.php, by looking at the source for that page you would find the path to the css file, which would give you the above definition.

Again I was assuming that he meant that thee css for this must be defined in one of the Milonic files I had downloaded, such as menu_data.js, but I couldn't find it.

What we actually need is the HTML for the search engine you want to use on your site. Most engines provide this code on their home pages. Once you have that we can put it into the proper format.

I take it that means that I need to ask my web host provider to provide me with a search engine?

Dave

[John]

What we actually need is the HTML for the search engine you want to use on your site. Most engines provide this code on their home pages. Once you have that we can put it into the proper format.

I take it that means that I need to ask my web host provider to provide me with a search engine?

Not at all. You can pick any search engine you like (Google, Ask, MSN, etc.), go to their home page and get the code to use their engine.

However, if you are looking for something that will search only your site, you'll need to either buy the Google appliance (I know - way too much $$), or get a script that is designed for just that purpose. There are lots of them out there (unfortunately none come to mind right now), but a search for something like "search script" should bring them up.

[Dave Rado]

Hi John

Not at all. You can pick any search engine you like (Google, Ask, MSN, etc.), go to their home page and get the code to use their engine.

I looked on Google but couldn't find it.

However, if you are looking for something that will search only your site, you'll need to either buy the Google appliance (I know - way too much $$), or get a script that is designed for just that purpose. There are lots of them out there (unfortunately none come to mind right now), but a search for something like "search script" should bring them up.

I found the following search script at http://tinyurl.com/2654em, but it didn't work properly when I tried it:

Code: Select all

				<p class="BodyText">
			
				<script type="text/javascript">
				<![CDATA[

				// Google Internal Site Search script- By JavaScriptKit.com (http://www.javascriptkit.com)
				// For this and over 400+ free scripts, visit JavaScript Kit- http://www.javascriptkit.com/
				// This notice must stay intact for use

				//Enter domain of site to search.
				var domainroot="http://www.daverado.mvps.org/"

				function Gsitesearch(curobj){
				curobj.q.value="site:"+domainroot+" "+curobj.qfront.value
				}
				]]>
				</script>


<form action="http://www.google.com/search" method="get" onSubmit="Gsitesearch(this)">

<p>Search<br />
<input name="q" type="hidden" />
<input name="qfront" type="text" style="width: 180px" size="20" /> <input type="submit" value="Search" /></p>

</form>

When I tried it, instead of searching http://www.daverado.mvps.org/, it just loaded up the google home page.

Is the script good and I'm misunderstanding how to implement it properly, or is it a bad script and I have to search for a better one?

Dave

[Dave Rado]

So you can reproduce my problem easily I've uploaded a mock-up to http://tinyurl.com/yrc5se

[Ruth]

I get an error message which the FF console tells me has to do with the cdata tag. I have no idea if that has anything to do with it or not. There were other scripts have you tried any of their other ones to see if they work, the one where you can choose google, yahoo etc?

Ruth

[Dave Rado]

Hi Ruth

I've taken out the cdata bit which was only there to make it validate, because I'm using XHTML doctype, but it still doesn't work. I'm not sure what I could be doing wrong, and the other scripts don't work when I try them either.

Dave

[John]

Based on this comment...

When I tried it, instead of searching http://www.daverado.mvps.org/, it just loaded up the google home page.

...this tells me you are looking to search only your site. Based on that, you either didn't read, or didn't understand, what I wrote above...

However, if you are looking for something that will search only your site, you'll need to either buy the Google appliance (I know - way too much $$), or get a script that is designed for just that purpose. There are lots of them out there (unfortunately none come to mind right now), but a search for something like "search script" should bring them up.

So, do a search for "search script" (I just got 251,000 returns on that), or "site search" (that gave 59,500,000!), pick one you want to use, and we'll try again.

[Dave Rado]

Hi John

So, do a search for "search script" (I just got 251,000 returns on that), or "site search" (that gave 59,500,000!), pick one you want to use, and we'll try again.

I did search for "search script" before, which - that's how I found the search script at http://tinyurl.com/2654em, but "site search" gave me better results, thanks. I've now got the FreeFind site search working and the html is as follows:

Code: Select all

<form action="http://search.freefind.com/find.html" method="get" accept-charset="utf-8" target="_self">
<span style="font-size: 10px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="79860793" />
<input type="hidden" name="pageid" value="r" />
<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="all" />
<input type="hidden" name="n" value="0" />
<input type="hidden" name="_charset_" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="bcd" value="&#247;" />
<input type="text" name="query" size="15" /><span style="font-size:8px"> 
<input type="submit" value=" Find " /><br />
</span>powered by <a href="http://websites.milonic.com/freefind.com">
FreeFind</a></span></form>

Dave