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First Posted 22 Mar 2007
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Search User Controls for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)

By | 29 Aug 2008 | Article
A set of user controls to provide Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) search functionality
Screenshot - sample.gif

Introduction

Although the out-of-the-box search Web parts provided by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 are very customizable, there are situations where you may want to develop your search interface to hook into MOSS. This download consists of a Search Box user control and a Search Results user control. The Search Results user control uses the new FullTextSqlQuery API to return the search results. As user controls (I might add a Web part version later), the look and feel are very easy to customize.

Description

The Search Box user control SearchBox.ascx has several public properties:

  • SearchResultsUrl - URL of the search results page. Default is the current page.
  • DefaultSearchScope - Default search scope. Default is All Sites.
  • SearchScopes - A comma delimited list of search scopes. If provided, they will be rendered in a dropdown list for user to limit the scope of the search.

The Search Results user control SearchResults.ascx has several public properties:

  • ResultFields - A comma delimited list of result fields. Default is WorkId, Rank, Title, Author, Size, Path, Description, Write, SiteName, CollapsingStatus, HitHighlightedSummary, HitHighlightedProperties, ContentClass, IsDocument, PictureThumbnailURL.
  • RowLimit - The number of search result items returned per page. Default is 10.
  • HitHighlightedTag - The HTML tag (without the enclosing angled brackets) to highlight the search words when rendering the result field HitHighlightedSummary. Default is b for bold.

Installation

The sample Visual Studio 2005 SP1 solution includes all the support files you need to build and deploy the user controls, minus strong name key files (*.snk). (The supplied Visual Studio 2005 solution contains Web Application projects supported only by SP1 or after.) It contains two projects: Deployment and Office.Server.Search. The Office.Server.Search project contains source codes for the user controls. The Deployment project contains a pre-build script to aggregate all the files needed for deployment. It contains a Solution directory where a WSP file is generated and deployed by a post-build script.

This structure of Visual Studio solution and projects is designed to be scalable to full blown MOSS/WSS development and deployment. You could add additional projects like SharePoint for WSS/MOSS development or SharePoint.Publishing for MOSS Publishing development. Within your projects, you could have other custom components like Web controls, Web parts, custom fields, feature receivers etc.

Of course you can install the user controls as is without further customization. Using stsadm, install the solution file QuestechSolution.wsp in \Deployments\Solution\:

stsadm -o addsolution -filename QuestechSolution.wsp

Then go to SharePoint Central Administration/Operations/Global Configuration-Solution Management and deploy the solution to selected Web applications. To insert the user controls to a page, modify the appropriate master page or page layout as follows:

...
<%@ Register TagPrefix="Questech" TagName="SearchBox"
      src="~/_controltemplates/Questech/SearchBox.ascx" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="Questech" TagName="SearchResults"
      src="~/_controltemplates/Questech/SearchResults.ascx" %>
...
...
<Questech:SearchBox id="SearchBox" runat="server" />

 ... 
<Questech:SearchResults id="SearchResults" runat="server" />
...

References

  1. Enterprise Search Query Object Model Overview
  2. Custom Enterprise Search Web Part Code
  3. Creating a Web part to explicitly search custom columns in MOSS 2007 - Part 1 and 2
  4. MOSS - Search Scopes

History

  • V1.2 - 2008.08.26 - Added support for sites run under extended web applications
  • V1.1 - 2008.04.22
    • Included sample Visual Studio 2005 solution for compiling and deploying the user controls
    • Updated installation instructions
  • V1.0 - 2007.03.22 - Base

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

About the Author

Stephen Huen

Web Developer
Questech Systems
Canada Canada

Member



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GeneralCustom search in WSS 3.0 Pinmembersmasher917:16 1 Aug '09  
Questionproblem with PATH property in extended site Pinmemberbilalfastian10:14 25 Aug '08  
AnswerRe: problem with PATH property in extended site PinmemberStephen Huen9:28 26 Aug '08  
QuestionHow to set Public Properties PinmemberBharat Chopra5:03 28 Apr '08  
AnswerRe: How to set Public Properties PinmemberStephen Huen16:22 29 Apr '08  
GeneralHitHighLightedSummary PinmemberSearchDeveloper4:24 29 Jan '08  
Generalows_name(Text) PinmemberSearchDeveloper8:15 15 Jan '08  
GeneralSearch PinmemberSearchDeveloper4:30 12 Dec '07  
GeneralScopes PinmemberSearchDeveloper4:44 4 Dec '07  
GeneralHelp in Search PinmemberSearchDeveloper10:43 29 Nov '07  
GeneralRe: Help in Search PinmemberStephen Huen14:00 29 Nov '07  
GeneralRe: Help in Search PinmemberSearchDeveloper11:34 30 Nov '07  
GeneralRegarding PictureThumbNailURL PinmemberSearchDeveloper9:28 28 Nov '07  
GeneralRe: Regarding PictureThumbNailURL PinmemberStephen Huen11:40 28 Nov '07  
QuestionQuestion on Search PinmemberVvenkatesan3:51 28 Nov '07  
AnswerRe: Question on Search PinmemberStephen Huen10:36 28 Nov '07  
GeneralRe: Question on Search PinmemberVvenkatesan10:38 28 Nov '07  
GeneralRegarding Scope PinmemberSearchDeveloper6:05 27 Nov '07  
GeneralRe: Regarding Scope PinmemberStephen Huen8:41 27 Nov '07  
GeneralAdvance Search PinmemberVvenkatesan8:55 26 Nov '07  
Generalwebpart for custom search using keyword query class(creating a search restriction) Pinmembershareknk23:32 19 Nov '07  
GeneralRegarding Search PinmemberSearchDeveloper10:57 13 Nov '07  
GeneralRe: Regarding Search PinmemberStephen Huen21:34 13 Nov '07  
GeneralRe: Regarding Search PinmemberSearchDeveloper9:44 14 Nov '07  
Hi,
 
I have registered both the SearchBox and SearchResults user control in my Home.aspx but iam able to c only SearchBox user control and not the Search Results usercontrol. When i tried to debug it the PageLoad event for SearchResults user control is not called and my results are not getting diplayed.
Can you just tell me what can be the problem.
 
Thanks
Paddy
GeneralRe: Regarding Search PinmemberSearchDeveloper10:29 14 Nov '07  

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