February 20, 2003 - updated February 23, 2003

The MovableType search function, mt-search.cgi, returns search result as a single long list of entries. The version 1.2 of MTPaginate plugin introduced support for a CGI mode which allows you to use it in a search_results template. Make sure that you follow these directions when adding MTPaginate tag to your templates.

  • <form method="get">
    An HTML form can be submitted in two different ways as specified by the method attribute.
  • <MTPaginate mode="cgi">
    Be defauly the MTPaginate tags generate PHP code that gets executed by the server when a browser retrieves the page. Since searching a blog invokes the mt-search.cgi, the server does not execute any PHP code in the page returned by the CGI so you must specify mode="cgi" so that the MTPaginate tags generate static text instead of PHP code.
  • <MTPaginateNavigator>
    In order to be able to navigate to other pages, you should have a <MTPaginateNavigator> tag in your search template. Look at the MTPaginate documentation for additional options.

Please note that the MTPaginate plugin is free for personal use, but requires a $20 license for commercial use.

Paginated Search Template 

The template that is used to generate the search results is stored in the MovableType/search_templates directory. The default template is called default.tmpl - you can replace it with the following template which displays ten entries per page. You may want to modify this template, especially the div.pageselector style or the <MTPaginateNavigator> tag. You can download this template from this location: default.tmpl.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

<title>Search Results</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<$MTBlogURL$>styles-site.css" type="text/css" />

<style type="text/css">
<!--
div.pageselector
{
   margin-bottom: 1em;
}
div.pageselector a,
div.pageselector a:link,
div.pageselector a:visited
{
    TEXT-DECORATION: none
}
div.pageselector a:hover,
div.pageselector a:focus,
div.pageselector a:active
{
    TEXT-DECORATION: underline
}
-->
</style>

</head>
<body>
<div id="banner">
<h1><a href="<$MTBlogURL$>">Search Results</a></h1>
</div>

<div id="container">
<div class="blog">

<MTPaginate mode="cgi">
<MTPaginateIfMultiplePages>
<div class="blogbody"><div class="pageselector">
Results <b><MTPaginateTopSection></b> - <b><MTPaginateBottomSection></b> of <MTPaginateNumSections>: 
<MTPaginateIfAllPages_><b>[ <MTPaginateNumPages> ]</b><MTPaginateElse_><a href="<$MTPaginateAllPagesLink$>"
   title="Show all results in one page"><MTPaginateNumPages></a></MTPaginateIfAllPages_> Pages:
<MTPaginateIfPreviousPage_>
   <a href="<MTPaginatePreviousPageLink>">&lt;</a>
<MTPaginateElse_>
   &lt;
</MTPaginateIfPreviousPage_> 
<MTPaginateNavigator separator=" " format_current=" &lt;b&gt;[ %d ]&lt;/b&gt; ">
<MTPaginateIfNextPage_>
   <a href="<MTPaginateNextPageLink>">&gt;</a>
<MTPaginateElse_>
   &gt;
</MTPaginateIfNextPage_>
</div>
</MTPaginateIfMultiplePages>
<MTPaginateContent max_sections="10">

<MTSearchResults>

   <MTBlogResultHeader>
      <h2 class="date">Search Results from <$MTBlogName$></h2>
   <MTElse>
      <MTPaginateIfPageHeader_>
         <h2 class="date">Search Results from <$MTBlogName$></h2>
      </MTPaginateIfPageHeader_>
   </MTElse>
   </MTBlogResultHeader>

   <div class="blogbody">
   <h3 class="title"><a href="<$MTEntryLink$>#<$MTEntryID pad="1"$>"><$MTEntryTitle$></a></h3>
   <$MTEntryExcerpt$> <$MTEntryEditLink$><br />
   <div class="posted">Posted in <$MTBlogName$> on <$MTEntryDate$></div>
   </div>

   <MTPaginateSectionBreak>
</MTSearchResults>
</MTPaginateContent>
</MTPaginate>

<MTNoSearchResults>
   <h2 class="date">Searched for "<$MTSearchString$>"</h2>

   <div class="blogbody">
   <p>No pages were found containing "<$MTSearchString$>".</p>
   </div>
</MTNoSearchResults>

<MTNoSearch>
   <h2 class="date">Instructions</h2>

   <div class="blogbody">
   <p>By default, this search engine looks for all words in any order.
      To search for an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in quotes:</p>

   <blockquote><pre>"movable type"</pre></blockquote>

   <p>The search engine also supports AND, OR, and NOT keywords to specify boolean expressions:</p>

   <blockquote><pre>personal OR publishing</pre></blockquote>

   <blockquote><pre>publishing NOT personal</pre></blockquote>
   </div>
</MTNoSearch>

<form method="get" action="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTSearchScript$>">

<h3 class="title">Search this site:</h3>
<div class="comments-body">
<input type="text" size="30" name="search" value="<$MTSearchString$>" />
  <input type="submit" value="Search" /><br/><br />
<input type="checkbox" name="CaseSearch" />
Match case <input type="checkbox" name="RegexSearch" /> Regex search<br/><br />
</div>
</form>

</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>