Restricted access needs to be PHP, but search template has to be HTML

[David]

The search template itself isn't something that should really need protection as it should have nothing of importance in it.

You can also use the techniques here,
http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/support/faq_ssi.html
To strip down the search_template.html file to nearly nothing. Effectively moving most of the HTML code into PHP files.

[sdweim85]

I hit a problem where I restricted access to my website with a login/password making the pages PHP so they can use the server side database for authentication.

But in order to restrict the search template it changes to PHP, thus making it not work with the search.cgi

Is there a way to have it make a search template that is in PHP?