trying to remove the search form in 2011 header section

Thanks for getting back to me – I never thought of looking on u-tube – have spent DAYs looking through the codex etc though. I can see how that works, but I though it wasn’t good practice to copy files to the child theme (to then edit) as it means twice the # of files to load + it wouldn’t allow for full updates?? I’ve read it’s better to just add in the required changes to a style/functions file in the child theme??
However i was getting desperate this am and have just tried this…

/* to stop Search Form in header area*/
#branding #searchform {
		display: none;
}

by adding it to my child style.css file which seems to have worked… Is this OK too???

Hi – thanks so much for your help. Whilst trying to find a solution to getting rid of the code completely (for the search form in the header.php) as well as the site title and tag line area (ie leaving only the header image + main horizontal menu/nav) I copied the 2011 header.php to my child theme, then deleted the code that I didn’t want – which worked v well but still leaves me with the problem of having to check for changes with each update…
Since then I’ve run the most recent updates for 2011 & wp and low and behold 2011 offers just the sort of edits I was trying to do with my child theme (for the title) – Hurray! – so I’ve made the changes via the wp-admin and deleted the header.php in my Child theme – BUT I’m back to where I started with the search box: so it’s still not showing because of the code below, in my child style.css

/* to stop Search Form in header area*/
#branding #searchform {
		display: none;

but it’s container remains an issue for the available space for the main horizontal menu – so I need to get rid of it all!
I’ve scoured the wp forums and utube tutorials and ALL of them basically say to copy the header.php then delete/comment out the code – so NOT good for future updates to the 2011 header.php file.
Please, I’d really appreciate any help with this – I guess what I’m after is the correct way to ‘cancel’ the search form via my Child theme functions.php file, so that it remains bullet-proof for further updates…. Thanks.

Hi David,
Thanks for your help – I’ve changed my child style.css to include the ‘right: 99999px’, and tried both with & without the ‘.only-search,’ at the beginning and although it still eliminates the search form, it doesn’t free-up the right-hand space on the main horizontal nav bar; so when the screen is narrowed the nav bar becomes 2 lines rather than spreading to the right-hand end – though I haven’t yet re-done the child header a/a. I’ve also tried changing the right-hand margin on the ‘#access’ via my child style.css but it doesn’t fix it!
But I’d be really interested to know why you can’t use the child functions.php to stop the search box from loading?? Is it that you can only ‘modify’ functions this way, but have to comment them out/delete them in copied files to your child theme to actually STOP unwanted functions?? Or is there some php code that could do this?? – and yes I’m still on the Holy Grail of totally upgradeable Child Themes, as I intend to use mine across several sites, so it’s quite important to me for it to be quick and accurate. It does seem to be an issue for lots of people besides myself, and would be great to find a ‘perfect fix’ for it particularly as child themes are becoming more popular…Fingers crossed! Thanks.

Brilliant! Very nice ‘clean’ idea that works well – except it doesn’t solve the problem of the right-hand space being limited by something in the horizontal nav menu. So perhaps it was due to another factor all along??
I’ve searched it via firebug and dreamweaver and the only thing I can think of is a styling issue of the primary menu in the nav id # access (I titled mine ‘menu-main_site_menu-container’). So here’s the code for the area…

<nav id="access" role="navigation">
<h3 class="assistive-text">Main menu</h3>
<div class="skip-link">
<div class="skip-link">
<div class="menu-main_site_menu-container">
<ul id="menu-main_site_menu" class="menu">

but I can’t find anything that affects the right-hand margin – in fact I can’t find a style.css item that styles the menu-container at all!! only php files which don’t seem to relate to the width either.
Any ideas??? Thanks.

As no ideas here, I’ll post this query in the coding forum as it’s probably more appropriate.
But thanks for all help with this 🙂