search box help

Here's one we used that is like what you are trying to produce:

<form name="form1">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="right"><font face="Arial">
<select name="select1" size="1" style="background-color:#FFFFD7" onChange="displaydesc(document.form1.select1, thetext1, 'textcontainer1')">
<option selected value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php">Choose a product category</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=end%20panels">End Panels</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=wood%20shelving">Wood Shelving</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=leg%20based%20tables">Leg Based Tables</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=display%20furniture">Display Furniture</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=reading%20tables">Reading Tables</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=study%20carrels">Study Carrels</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=book%20trucks">Book Trucks</option>
</select></font><font size="2" face="Arial"> </font><font face="Arial">
<input type="button" value="Go"
onClick="jumptolink(document.form1.select1)"></font></p>
</form>

Hi rentittoday,

Just a heads up, what you want to do is pretty advanced so it might require some javascript and/or basic php.

The first step is to complete a mockup design of how you want each of the search results pages to look.

Next is to get a basic search page for a single category working. You can find docs on that here: http://www.interactivetools.com/docs/cmsbuilder/viewer_search.html

Next, you could use a javascript pulldown as sagentic suggests to jump between search engines or pass a different section 'tablename'.

And finally we have a multi table search function you have use to return results from multiple tables/sections. Another way to do that is with design having tabs the user can click through to get results from different 'categories'.

Start with the mockup and search results page and the basic search engine. Let me know when you get that far and we'll point you in the right direction for the next step.

Hope that helps!

Good point Dave - you do need some javascript!

I didn't copy far enough on the code we used. It should be:


<form name="form1">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="right"><font face="Arial">
<select name="select1" size="1" style="background-color:#FFFFD7" onChange="displaydesc(document.form1.select1, thetext1, 'textcontainer1')">
<option selected value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php">Choose a product category</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=end%20panels">End Panels</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=wood%20shelving">Wood Shelving</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=leg%20based%20tables">Leg Based Tables</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=display%20furniture">Display Furniture</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=reading%20tables">Reading Tables</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=study%20carrels">Study Carrels</option>
<option value="http://www.internationallibrary.com/products/index.php?category=book%20trucks">Book Trucks</option>
</select></font><font size="2" face="Arial"> </font><font face="Arial">
<input type="button" value="Go"
onClick="jumptolink(document.form1.select1)"></font></p>
</form>

<script type="text/javascript">

function displaydesc(which, descriptionarray, container){
if (document.getElementById)
document.getElementById(container).innerHTML=descriptionarray[which.selectedIndex]
}

function jumptolink(what){
var selectedopt=what.options[what.selectedIndex]
if (document.getElementById && selectedopt.getAttribute("target")=="newwin")
window.open(selectedopt.value)
else
window.location=selectedopt.value
}
</script>

To see it in action, it is on every page of http://www.internationallibrary.com