HOW TO

Set Site Search

EZGenerator Site Search is a simple built-in search engine that will help visitors easily find content on your site. The Site Search will search only in pages that are generated with EZGenerator.

EZGenerator search will work only when uploaded on a PHP enabled server. To test this functionality offline you can Install your own test server on your PC.

In most templates the site search box is embedded in the template area. But you can also insert it on pages anywhere. Not all templates support search box in the template area.

Activation for the whole site

To activate your Site Search in the template area:

• Go to the Project Template toolbar, Advanced Tab.
• Make sure Use Built-In Template Search property is checked.

Activate search box in a certain page

If you want to activate search box in a specific page:

• Go to certain page.
• Go to the Editing Tools toolbar and press Macros Fields button and insert site search object (if available).
• The object has three parameters with default values. First parameter (with default value 10) sets the number of results to be displayed on result page. Second parameter (with default value 'true') sets if Site Search will search in whole site (true) or in current language pages only (false). Third parameter (with default value 200) sets the search box width. You can change the default values.

Customizing of labels used in search result page

Few labels are used in search result page. To customize them, go to Language Settings tab, press the Interface Labels button arrow and select Search Labels.

Re-index your site

When visitor types some key words in your site search box and submits the search, EZGenerator Site Search does not search in the actual pages, but in a pre-generated index database file that contains all page content for faster searching.

The process of filling this database file with page content is called site indexing. Your site is reindexed each time you press Preview Site (and re-index) button that shows when Publish finished.

How search works

Type a word to search for exact word only.

To search for a phrase, enclose the phrase with quotes (").

To search for a string, use wildcards. You can use both (*) and (?) as wildcards.

Example:

- *on will find "son", "bonbon", etc;

- ki? will find "kid", "kind", etc.

Advanced search (available in MySQL project only)

The advanced search option will provide you with more expanded search form (see below):

To activate it:

• Go to the Project Template toolbar, Advanced Tab.
• Check Advanced Search property.

Now special Advanced search button will be included in the search result page.

For more information about what parameters you can use with Advanced search, check Advanced Search Parameters.

Customize Search Result page

Site search returns results in a list of results, each with the title set as link to the corresponding page in the site, content excerpt, date and url. If you want to customize this default layout, check Customize Search Result page.