Viewer Search Engines

CMS Builder makes it easy to quickly create custom search engines.

Search Field Format

You create a basic search engine by entering the name of the field you want to search followed by the type of search you want to do, then adding that to the url or search form.

Tip: You can combine date searches with other types of searches. For example 'articleList.php?date_year_min=2005' would show all articles with a date of 2005 or later.

Basic Url Search

You can create a special link that only lists specific records. Just add a ("?") after your url, following by the search conditions (fieldname=value).

Example: listViewer.php?color=blue

Multiple search conditions can be combined with ("&").

Example: listViewer.php?color=blue&size=XXL

Note that if 'where' clause is specified in the list options then any form field keywords will be ignored.

Multi-field Search

You can search multiple fields just as easy as one field. Just create a comma seperated list of fields followed by the search prefix.

Example: articleList.php?title,summary,content_keyword=Vancouver

Custom Search Forms

You can create search forms by naming the fields after what you want them to search. Here is a simple search form that searches the "title" field for a keyword.

<form method="POST" action="">

<input type="text" name="title_keyword" value="">

<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Search">

</form>

SEO Search Urls (Advanced)

Many servers support having extra "Path Info" after the url like this: "viewer.php/size-3/". This makes it appear as if a page or directory exists even if it doesn't and is great for search engine optimization.

The format is the same as for "Basic Url Searches" except instead of = you use - and instead of & you use /. Here's the same example as above:

Example: listViewer.php/color-blue/size-XXL/

The quickest way to determine if your server support "Path Info" searches is to try one. Servers that don't support it will give a not found or other error message.

MySql WHERE Searches (advanced)

If you are comfortable with MySql you can specify a custom MySql WHERE clause in List Viewer options. Note that any form field keywords will be ignored if a 'where' option is specified. Example:

Example: $options['where'] = 'price >= 250000 AND bedrooms = 2';

Tip: If you want to ignore any form field keywords and ALWAYS display all records (such as when you have multiple viewers on a page) then set

$options['where'] = '1';

in your list viewer options. This condition is always true and therefore will return all records.