This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

Multisite Global Search

Description

Easily search through all blogs into your WordPress Multisite by post title, post content or post author.
Multisite Global Search doesn’t work with single WordPress installation and it must be activated for all sites using “network activate” in the Administration Panel.
Currently in the following languages:

  • Dutch (nl_NL) by Niels Boos Webdiensten ZZP
  • English
  • German (de_DE) by Dennis Vorpahl
  • French (fr_FR) by Fabrice Perrinel
  • Italian (it_IT) by Davide Tommasin
  • Norwegian Bokmal (nb_NO) by Tore Johnny Bråtveit
  • Portuguese (pt_PT) by Jose Anjos
  • Russian (ru_RU) by Sam Savinov
  • Romanian (ro_RO) by Alexander Ovsov Web Hosting Geek Science
  • Serbian (sr_RS) by Andrijana Nikolic [Web Hosting Geeks] http://science.webhostinggeeks.com/multisite-global-search
  • Slovak (sk_SK) by Branco Web Hosting Geeks
  • Spanish (es_ES)

If you have created your own language pack, or have an update of an existing one, you can send gettext .po and .mo files to me so that I can bundle it into Multisite Global Search.

** Features **

  • Multisite Global Search Widget. Show a search form in your sidebar.
  • Search across all network blogs or only in your blogs if you are logged.
  • Search on pages.
  • Administrative choice to perform searches by default on pages.
  • Administrative choice to disable search options.
  • Search results are showed in a page which contents the shortcode: [multisite_search_result]
  • Show excerpted results [multisite_search_result excerpt="yes"]
  • Entries on every site across your installation appear in search results immediately after publication.
  • Receive results from your complete blog network, even sites you do not own or control.
  • Customizable style sheet for widget and results page.
  • Two different form types, vertical and horizontal.
  • Put search form into your code with Multisite_Global_Search::ms_global_search_vertical_form(your_results_page) or Multisite_Global_Search::ms_global_search_horizontal_form(your_results_page)
  • Insert search form in templates using the shortcode: [multisite_search_form]. See the plugin page for more information.

Last version contributed by Lachele Foley

Customization

You may make a few customizations to how the plugin looks and behaves. To make these customizations, you will need to be able to write to the multisite-global-search directory.

Adding Behavior Customizations

  1. Make a file in the multisite-global-search directory called “config_local.php”.
  2. See the file called “config.php” for the list of items you may customize. The file contains documentation for each of them.
  3. Copy the lines containing variables you wish to change to config_local.php and alter them as desired. Take care to retain formatting, for example, the line-ending semicolon.
  4. Make a backup copy of your config_local.php that is stored outside your WordPress installation!

Adding Look and Feel Customizations

  1. Make a file in the multisite-global-search directory called “customstyle.css”.
  2. Add your style alterations to this file. It will be loaded after the default style.css.
  3. Make a backup copy of your customstyle.css that is stored outside your WordPress installation!

Screenshots

  • Widget configuration.
  • Vertical Global Search widget.
  • Horizontal Global Search widget.

Installation

Requirements

  • WordPress Multisite Installation.
  • MySQL 5.0.1 or greater.
  • The MySQL user needs to be assigned the ability to “create views” and “drop views” in WordPress database.
  • Permalink structure must be diferent to default when widget is activated in a blog of your network.

Installation is easy

  1. Upload multisite-global-search folder to the wp-content/plugins directory in your WordPress multisite installation.
  2. Activate the plugin in your Administration Panel.
  3. Create a new page in your main site with the permalink URL: http//yoursite/globalsearch/..
  4. Place [multisite_search_result] in the post content area.
  5. Activate widget Multisite Global Search.

Upgrade instructions

  1. Deactivate the plugin in your Administration Panel.
  2. Earlier version to 1.2.2 needs drop tables from the database: drop view yourdatabaseprefix_v_posts; drop view yourdatabaseprefix_v_comments; drop view yourdatabaseprefix_v_postmeta;
  3. Upgrade the plugin.
  4. Activate the plugin in your Administration Panel.
  5. Activate widget Multisite Global Search.

FAQ

If you have any further questions, please submit them.

Can the search form be used with a shortcode in templates versus the widget?

Insert search form in templates using the shortcode: [multisite_search_form]

How can show horizontal form using the shortcode?

Use type attribute to select vertical form or horizontal form. For example: [multisite_search_form type="horizontal"]
Default attribute value is vertical.

How can change results page URI when you insert search form with the shortcode?

Use page attribute to change results page URI. For example: [multisite_search_form page="multisite-search"]. Search results will be showed in http://your_blog_URL/multisite-search.
Default attribute value is globalsearch.

Can I put search form into PHP files using a function?

Yes. For example, this is a results page for word ‘e-learning’: http://grial.usal.es/agora/busqueda/?mssearch=e-learning&msp=1&mswhere=all

In this case, the name of the results page is ‘busqueda’ so the code that it will have to put in the PHP template must be:

<?php Multisite_Global_Search::ms_global_search_vertical_form('busqueda') ?>

or

Get error “check you have create views privilege in your WordPress database. Illegal mix of collations for operation ‘UNION'”.

The instruction means that you may not have given the necessary priviledges to your MySQL user. The user needs to be assigned the ability to “create views”.

Limit results to just the title and the excerpt

Edit results page and place [multisite_search_result excerpt="yes"] in the post content area instead of [multisite_search_result]

Set the plugin to always perform searches also in pages

Check option “Search by default on pages” when you configure Multisite Global Search Widget.

If you use shortcode [multisite_search_form] use search_on_pages attribute to search by default on pages. For example: [multisite_search_form search_on_pages="1"].
Default attribute value is 0.

Customizing search form

You have to copy the CSS code from the stylesheet in the Multisite Global Search directory, paste it in your own stylesheet and modify it.

Reviews

September 3, 2016
The plugin works, but returned the following errors on the results page: Warning: Missing argument 2 for wpdb::prepare(), called in /home/macdnet/public_html/wp-content/plugins/multisite-global-search/inc/shortcodes.php on line 223 and defined in /home/macdnet/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1210 It also broke the layout of one of my widgets (but not the plugin widget, ironically.) Search results page definitely needs some customization before going live, but I think the plugin will be useful.
Read all 12 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Multisite Global Search” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

1.2.14

Fixed: problems with wpdb::prepare()

1.2.13

  • Improved searching on private or network-visible-only pages for users that are logged in.
  • Removed private and network-visible-only results for users who are not logged in.
  • Made other general improvements to the search process.
  • Added customization capabilities for certain php processes and for css options.

1.2.12

  • Added: Dutch language pack

1.2.11

  • Added: Serbian language pack

1.2.10

  • Added: Italian language pack

1.2.9

  • Added: Slovak language pack

1.2.8

  • Added: search multiple keywords regardless of the order

1.2.7

  • Fixed: languages problem
  • Added: Romanian language pack

1.2.6

  • Fixed: SQL injection and XSS vulnerability
  • Added: Portuguese language pack
  • Added: German language pack
  • Added: Administrative choice to disable search options

1.2.5

  • Fixed: error message “The used SELECT statements have a different number of columns”
  • Fixed: show up private posts
  • Added: French language pack
  • Added: Norwegian Bokmal language pack
  • Changed: Administrative choice to perform searches by default on pages

1.2.4

  • Fixed: empty excerpts
  • Fixed: problems when you have upgraded from WPMU to WP3.0 Multisite
  • Added: Russian language pack

1.2.3

  • Fixed: windows paths
  • Fixed: problemns with blog url
  • Added: search on pages
  • Changed: radio button to “search only blogs where I’m a member” is showed when user are logged in

1.2.2

  • Fixed: Fatal error redeclared functions
  • Added: deactivation hook. Clean database when the plugin is deactivated
  • Changed: search form can be used into PHP files

1.2.1

  • Fixed: database prefix problem
  • Changed: translation files

1.2

  • Added: error message when plugin installation faults
  • Added: error message when permalink structure is “default”
  • Fixed: error message when plugin is activated in a WordPress single installation
  • Fixed: use constant BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE instead of 1

1.1

  • Added: shortcode for search form
  • Added: shortcode attribute that enable excerpted results
  • Added: new strings to translation files
  • Changed: order results
  • Fixed: style for results page