Creating a quicksearch form for Serendipity

Lets start by adding the quicksearch form. My form includes a small amount of javascript that places the term 'quicksearch' into the input box. The variable used {$CONST.QUICKSEARCH} comes from Serendipity's language files so should be translated into every language supported by Serendipity.

<div id="search">
<form id="searchform" action="{$serendipityBaseURL}" method="get">
<input type="hidden" name="serendipity[action]" value="search" />
<input type="text" name="serendipity[searchTerm]" value="{$CONST.QUICKSEARCH}..." onFocus="if(this.value=='{$CONST.QUICKSEARCH}...')value=''" onBlur="if(this.value=='')value='{$CONST.QUICKSEARCH}...';">
<input type="submit" name="quicksearch-button" value="Go!">
</form>
</div>

I've placed a wrapper <div> around our search form because regardless of where on your page you place the form you are very likely to want to give it some unique styling. I've also left the hidden input in place. For some reason the search routine built into Serendipity needs the value="search" on the submit button if the hidden input is removed. Obviously this would have prevented me from changing the button text, so by leaving the hidden input in place I have been able to use 'Go!' which is more recognisable to many web users.

So now that our search form is working, it is also possible to make sure that the quicksearch plugin never appears in our sidebar. This is a very easy step to take, and all we need to do is add a couple lines of code to sidebar.tpl file for our theme. Open sidebar.tpl and immediately after the {foreach...} insert the following;

{if $item.class == "serendipity_quicksearch_plugin"}{else}

Now, immediately before the {/foreach} insert this a closing {/if}, so that your entire sidebar.tpl now looks like this;

{if $is_raw_mode}
<div id="serendipity{$pluginside}SideBar">
{/if}
{foreach from=$plugindata item=item}{if $item.class == "serendipity_quicksearch_plugin"}{else}
<div class="serendipitySideBarItem container_{$item.class}">
{if $item.title != ""}<h3 class="serendipitySideBarTitle {$item.class}">{$item.title}</h3>{/if}
<div class="serendipitySideBarContent">{$item.content}</div>
</div>
{/if}
{/foreach}
{if $is_raw_mode}
</div>
{/if}

There you go, you now have a working search form on your theme, and I'm sure you can see the potential for taking the sidebar code and using it in other ways. Good luck.