Tip: Preset search / Preset search options

[sizbut]

Have just been working with Zoom Search .php and .cgi and very pleased.

Had one problem for which I have now found the answer and would like to share as its not in the Zoom Search user guide (which is still very good).

Problem:
I have documents both as PDF files and multipage HTML's and setup search categories for .htm and .pdf results. I would like to steer users to the HTML's first rather than PDF's but the default search category always started as All.

Solution:
I change the url used to start the search from 'search.php' to 'search.php?zoom_cat=0' which preset the zoom search form with my first category which was HTML.

More experience users may be saying "so what!" but its a nice trick that needs to be said. Allows the search to be driven and customised without having to actually edit any part of Zoom. Users just need to study the names of the fields in zoom search form.

This method could have a lot of very nice uses. For example add a link to you page on Widgets saying "Want to know more about Widgets" using a URL string like 'search.php?zoom_query=widgets'.

[Ray]

This is a good tip, you can similarly change the default setting for other search options via this method.

For example, "search.php?zoom_sort=1&zoom_per_page=20" would link to a search page which defaults with the "sort by date" option and show 20 results per page.