Textpattern Support Forum

In answer to EJ (who posted a comment on the Textpattern resources site)

To create the “clear query” button, it’s not complicated: just read the documentation! Yes, it’s this parameter named “resetimage”. Specify the URL of an image you want to display as a clear button and it will appear next to the search box. It’s created using javascript, so it will not appear if javascript is disabled (and it should not because clicking on an image never does anything when javascript is disabled). Of course I could also have used a standard form reset button, but it’s more esthetically pleasant with an image and you have more control over the design (when it’s a button, you don’t know its exact dimensions).

To talk a little bit more about the documentation: Every good programmer enjoys writing code and usually doesn’t like writing documentation but he knows he should do it anyway. Personnaly I create Textpattern plugins for my own needs and I don’t need to write documentation for them because I know how they work, but I have spent quite a lot of time making them customizable and accessible to anyone especially by writing a complete documentation (and this plugin has the biggest one). Ironically, the documentation is nearly always bigger than the code itself. So, please take the time to read it.

So actually, the site you mention is not a demo site, it’s just my personal website but because I’ve written the plugins for it, you can of course watch them in action there. I’ll release a new one soon.

Last edited by cbeyls (2006-07-15 01:11:10)

Yes, I was using the wilshire script before but I didn’t like the keyboard feature (and it was not working in Safari on mac I think).

As for my script, I have tested it using: the evil IE (Windows), Firefox (Windows), Opera 9 (Windows, note that Opera 8 should work but the transparency effect will not be visible), Camino (Mac), Safari (Mac).

At first I wanted to use script.aculo.us for the visual effects then I realized that this library not only was huge but the scale effect didn’t work as expected so I needed to implement my own effect to make it work. Then I switched to the excellent moo.fx library: my code became simpler and I could use the built-in effects.

You’re right, I should add the message to be displayed when no result is found in the options list. I’ll probably add it soon. I didn’t like the idea of having this message written as a javascript parameter in the page but anyway it will be useful for some people so it’s worth adding it.

Finally you must know something about the wilshire plugin: all its code is wrapped in a single function, including the live search processing code. When the AJAX request occurs, Textpattern starts to generate an entire HTML page and when it encounters the live search plugin, the processing will stop, it will perform the search and then exit, writing the results. This is not efficient because you don’t want to start building a full HTML page when you just need to perform a search query and output a little piece of HTML.
So what I did it to prevent that is making the search part of my plugin register itself as a textpattern callback: this code is called BEFORE the page starts to be generated.

Quick question… When I use the resetimage option, the image is always in view. It appears to be positioned the same as the ‘working’ image, which shows up only when the results are open, so there must be some simple thing I’ve overlooked to make the reset appear only when needed.

?

BTW, I’m really impressed with the small size and lean code. I’ve replaced the search on one project with this one and the owner is well-pleased. Thanks for an awesome plugin!

Hokay. I’ve done something silly, because I get no returns and this from Firebug:

no element
anonymous prototype.js (line 549)
anonymous prototype.js (line 83)
anonymous prototype.js (line 550)
anonymous prototype.js (line 753)
anonymous prototype.js (line 20)
anonymous livesearch.js (line 114)
anonymous livesearch.js (line 51)
anonymous prototype.js (line 1363)

Plugin is activated; js calls are in place. I’ve tried the tag with and without options, but still no returns. Ideas?

Heh. How silly of me. Whatta you know? It works. :)