Categories within search…

My category links are hard-coded into the page to so that they each have their own style assigned to them. So if you answer, keep that in mind.

A few options I thought of…

1) I could make the links to the categories actually search buttons that are text. So when someone clicks on one of them they’re taken to a search results page that includes only those categories.

2) Make separate blogs for each city. So Dallas would be https://www.couponfridge.com/dallas and so on. Then people could enter in their city and it would take them to that specific blog.

The only problem is, I don’t know how to really do either. With option #2 I don’t want to install a blog for every city. Is there an easy way to do this? Are there any other thoughts out there? Otto?! Moshu?!?! ??

Ba-da-bump

I think first you would need to add category search ability to your blog via plugin or something. From there you would need to add PHP code that tacks whatever search info onto your tabs.

Not very helpful, I know. Hopefully a start in the right direction though.

Yes, I have the ability to search the categories.

There has to be a way to search within the category you’re currently in. That can’t be something TOO hard to do. Is it??

No one?

This has got to be possible… can anyone help at all?

If you want to search only the current category (and exclude results from pages, showing posts only) you need to edit the following files in your theme:

First, edit the search.php file. Just above the loop paste the following code:

<?php
if ($_GET['cat'] != '') {
	$posts = query_posts($query_string . '&post_type=post'); // return only posts
} else {
	$posts = query_posts($query_string . '&post_type=page'); // return only posts
}
?>

Next you need to modify your search form to search only the current category. Replace the default form with:

<?php $category = get_the_category(); ?>
<form method="get" id="jobsearch" action="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>/">
<div><input type="text" value="<?php echo wp_specialchars($s, 1); ?>" name="s" id="s" />
<input type="hidden" name="cat" value="<?php echo $category[0]->cat_ID; ?>" />
<input type="submit" id="jobsubmit" value="Search Jobs" />
</div>
</form>

That should do it.

@ Mindshare, mind if I ask how you would you modify that code to do the following:

First
Input: two specified categories
Output: posts that are in both categories (AND operation)

Second, can the search be triggered just by clicking on a url, rather than showing the search form (I think that’s possible?)

Third, can the search function just be used to generate a count of the results that would be than the results themselves (eg 7 posts)

Fourth, could you run one of the categories through a loop to a list of searches the list.

The result would be a lists like this:

Example:
First category= real estate agents
Second category hierarchy) top level = state, second level=cities

List generated be:
State y
* Posts about real estate agents in city A (7) – click here to see them
* Posts about real estate agents in city B (2)- click here to see them
State z
* Posts about real estate agents in city D (7) – click here to see them
* Posts about real estate agents in city E (2)- click here to see them

As a bonus an if function could be included to not display a list item that had zero posts.

saganaki – just saw this post. you should probably hire someone to do that for you. ??

I wish…going to have to be DIY

Hmm, after RFTC this could be the answer:

Multiple Category Handling

Display posts that are in multiple categories

query_posts(array('category__and' => array(2,6)));

This only shows posts that are in both categories 2 and 6. To display posts from either category 2 OR 6, you could use cat as mentioned above, or explicitly specify by using category__in:

query_posts(array('category__in' => array(2,6)));

You can also exclude multiple categories this way:

query_posts(array('category__not_in' => array(2,6)));

<?php
if ($_GET['cat'] != '') {
	$posts = query_posts($query_string . '&post_type=post'); // return only posts
} else {
	$posts = query_posts($query_string . '&post_type=page'); // return only posts
}
?>

<input type="hidden" name="cat" value="<?php echo $category[0]->cat_ID; ?>" />

First off @mindshare thank you for posting the code.

I ran into the following, and wanted to posts the results and obstacles because I haven’t been able to find a solution so far:

I hardcoded the “input type” value because I noticed that if you get a search not found result the value would dissapear out of the url.
Hardcoding this value keeps the focus, which I then use to return a “search not found” template file which includes the correct search form again.

I want to add multiple search forms in various places and have these search in specified areas such as categories. Using for example “in_category” with elseif statements works. However, now the main search takes over the integer from the url… :/ Still haven’t figured out that part out.

So I want to figure out how to get the main search to search through all the posts adn give a specified search results page regardless of the value in the url.

Using the ‘<?php echo $category[0]->cat_ID; ?>’ could result in a lot less work, but the url integer would also have to be passed on a “no search result found.” Maybe a query_posts and/or in combination with an if statement in the search result template would be an option…(?)

o.k. this code allows one to search a category or combinations of categories:

<div>

<form action="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/" method="get">

<p>

<div><input type="text"  name="s" size="40" /></div>

<label class="your_style"><input type="checkbox" name="cat" value="catnumber1, catnumber2, catnumber3"  />Parent Category name 1</label>

<label class="your_style"><input type="checkbox" name="cat" value="catnumber1"  />Child category name 1</label>

<label class="your_style" ><input type="checkbox" name="cat" value="catnumber2" />Child category name 2</label>

<label class="your_style" ><input type="checkbox" name="cat" value="catnumber3"  />Child category name 3</label>

<div><input  class="your_style" type="submit" value="Search" /></div>

</p>

</form>
</div>

The url you get for a single category for example is:

https://www.your-domain.com/?s=your_search_word&cat=your_cat_number

One could customize the search form with different fields and/ or for example use cat_ID to pass the category variable dynamically.

Hi, this works fine.
However, i activated the “Search Everything” plugin that allows to custom fields to be searchable.

The problem is that now the above code ignores the “cat” condition and outputs all posts that have the search term in the custom field.

Any ideas?