AhCrawler :: Searchform

Simple search form

For a quick winner there is a ready to use method for a quite simple form. Use the method renderSearchForm() to display it.

Here is no customization. To customize the layout see below the chapter Fully customized search form.

require_once("classes/search.class.php");

// ----- (1) init with site id:
$o = new ahsearch();
$o->setSiteId(1);

// or shorter: $o = new ahsearch(1);

// ----- (2) set the frontend language
$o->setLangFrontend('en');

// ----- (3) show form to enter search term
echo $o->renderSearchForm();

// ------ (4) output of results
echo $o->renderSearchresults();

The result of a simple search form is a single input field and a submit button.

ahcrawler :: simple search form

Simple search form with options

For (3) you can add an array to show the extended options by setting the flag to 0 or 1

(...)
// ----- (3) show form to enter search term with additional options
echo $o->renderSearchForm(array(
    'categories'=>1,
    'lang'=>1,
    'mode'=>1,
));
(...)

The possible keys are

categories
Show a select box with your categories in your profile profiles -> [siteid] -> categories
The item for the search in the complete site will be added automatically.
lang
Show a select box with your document languages profiles -> [siteid] -> searchlang
The item for the search in all languages will be added automatically.
mode
Show a select box to choose between AND or OR condition

The result with activated options:

ahcrawler :: simple search form

Fully customized search form

In the methods above is no customaization. If you use frameworks like Bootstrap you want to have the full control for positioning and custom css classes and attributes for all select boxes and other items.

With a fully customized form you need to place the form tag, all labels and input tags and a submit button.
But: you don't need to care about GET or POST parameters for the search terms or options.
To do so you can use public methods of the search class to place all form items where you want and you can change its html attributes i.e. to set a custom css class.

Here an example with Bootstrap:

<?php
require_once("classes/search.class.php");

// ----- (1) init with site id:
$o = new ahsearch(1);

// ----- (2) set the frontend language
$o->setLangFrontend('de');

// ----- (3) show custom form
?>
<hr>
<form method="GET" action="?">
    <?php echo $o->renderHiddenfields(); ?>
    <?php echo $o->lF('label.searchhelp'); ?><br>
    <br>

    <div>
        <div class="col-sm-12">
            <?php echo $o->renderLabelSearch() ?>
            <div class="input-group">
                <?php echo $o->renderInput(array('class'=>'form-control')) ?>
                <span class="input-group-btn">

                    <button class="btn btn-success" type="submit">
                        <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-search" aria-hidden="true"></span>
                        <?php echo $o->lF('btn.search.label'); ?>
                    </button>
                </span>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <br>
    <br>
    <?php echo $o->lF('label.searchoptions'); ?>:<br>
        <div class="col-sm-4">
            <?php echo $o->renderLabelCategories() . $o->renderSelectCategories(array('class'=>'form-control')) ?>
        </div>
        <div class="col-sm-2">
            <?php echo $o->renderLabelLang() . $o->renderSelectLang(array('class'=>'form-control')) ?>
        </div>
        <div class="col-sm-5">
            <?php echo $o->renderLabelMode() . $o->renderSelectMode(array('class'=>'form-control')) ?>
        </div>
    </div>

</form>
<div style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 2em;"></div>
<?php

// ------ (4) output of results
echo $o->renderSearchresults();

You can use your own form tag. The search works with GET and POST.
renderHiddenfields() - adds hidden fields for project and language
lF([id]) - shows a language specific text by a given id.
The letter F is for frontend.
Ids are:
- label.searchhelp - introtext with a short help
- btn.search.label - text for the search button
- label.searchoptions - text for extended options
show label tags for input and search boxes (*)
- renderLabelSearch()
- renderLabelCategories()
- renderLabelLang()
- renderLabelMode()
renderInput() - show input for search term (*)
show select boxes (*)
- renderSelectCategories()
- renderSelectLang()
- renderSelectMode()
renderSearchresults() - show the search results. There is output only if a search term was given

(*) In all renderLabel... and renderSelect... methods you can add an optionially array as parameter that contains wanted html attributes as key-value pairs. Your custom values override the defaults (or will be added).

If you want to change the for attribute then keep in mind to set the same value as id in the corresponding input tag.

Add a search in another domain

If you have a website on one domain and the ahcrawler instance runs on another one then the next snippet might be interesting for you.
Here is a very simple example for a PHP website that requests an url on the ahCrawler instance to show the form and results.
It uses the function file_get_contents for lowest requirements.

See the file integration/searchform.php on your AhCrawler instance - maybe you want to make a copy of it and restyle the form.

Very simple means: There are no protections yet against unwanted requests to the search form and no error handling.

Set $sCrawlerUrl to reference the php file with the search form on the AhCrawler instance.

Set values in the array $aDefaults.

<!doctype html>
<html>
	<head>
		<title>Search example using integration/searchform.php</title>
		<style>
			body{font-family: verdana,arial;}
		</style>
	</head>
	<body>
		<h1>Search example using integration/searchform.php</h1>
		<?php

		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		// CONFIG
		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		
		// url to fetch
		$sCrawlerUrl="https://tools.example.com/ahcrawler/integration/searchform.php";
		
		// forced defaults by your own website
		// those cannot be overrided by $_GET params
		$aDefaults=array(
			'siteid'=>1,   // set the project id in ahcrawler instance
			'lang'=>'en',  // uses texts from lang/frontend.[your-language-code].json
		);


		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		// prepare URL
		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		$sParams='';
		foreach(array_merge($_GET, $aDefaults) as $sVar=>$sVal){
			$sParams.=($sParams ? '&' : '?')
				. $sVar.'='.urlencode($sVal);
		}
		$sCrawlerUrl.=$sParams;


		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		// prepare request header
		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		$options  = array('http' => array(
			'user_agent' => isset($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) ? $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] : '-',
			));
		$context  = stream_context_create($options);


		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		// output
		// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
		echo '<div style="border: 1px dotted; padding: 1em;">'
				. file_get_contents($sCrawlerUrl, false, $context)
			.'</div>'
		;

		?>

	</body>
</html>

Searches and statistics

If some searches were done in the website, you can see the history of the last searches and search it again to see the results a user user got. Or the Top 10 of different periods.

http://localhost/ahcrawler/backend/?page=searches