One of the first questions I've been receiving from customers who are looking to deploy the CKS:EBE is "Where is the search box?". While there are a number of solutions to this problem, I thought it might be useful to share the approach, source and solution that I have taken.
Announcing the zevenseas CKS:EBE Search Feature.
Download
The Solution
The approach I decided to take was to create a feature composed of two core components:
- A new page, configured to include the core search web parts
- A new, more flexible search box (zsSearchBox), which can be used from any theme masterpage
Screenshots (click to enlarge)
Installation
- Download the solutions package here.
- Unzip the package onto a SharePoint front end server
- Either run the "Install.bat" file from the command-line (installs to all Web Applications) or for more control, manually install the .wsp solution files.
This will install two solutions:
a) zevenseas Community Solutions Library
This installs the files needed to access the evolving zevenseas Community Solutions library. Its a library that will grow over time to include a number of solutions for SharePoint. The first of these is the more flexible search box.
b) zevenseas CKS:EBE Search
This is the feature which, when installed, can be activated on any CKS:EBE site, to add the search functionality.
Once these solutions have been installed, you will need to add the new zsSearchBox to your theme masterpage.
Adding the zsSearchBox to your theme.master page
1) Open your theme.master page using SharePoint Designer
2) Add the following line to the registrations at the very top of the page:
<%@ Register TagPrefix="zs" Namespace="zevenseas.Community.Web.UI.WebControls" Assembly="zevenseas.Community.Web, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=613a6064cdb9c7d1" %>
3) Find the location in the source where you would like to insert the search box and then place the following:
<zs:zsSearchBox SearchResultPageURL="/search.aspx" searchboxwidth="140" ShowAdvancedSearchLink="false" runat="server" />
The zsSearchBox
The zsSearchBox currently supports a number of parameters, for example:
| SearchBoxWidth | Integer in pixels.
Sets the width of the search box.
Default = 420 |
| ShowAdvancedSearchLink | true/false
Determines whether a link to "Advanced Search" is dipslayed.
Default = true |
| AdvancedSearchPageURL | String relative URL
The URL of the Advanced Search page.
Default = "/SearchCenter/Pages/advanced.aspx" |
| SearchResultPageURL | String relative URL
The URL of the Blog search page
Default = "/search.aspx" |
Look forward to your feedback, hope you find it useful.