November 08, 2023

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search Plugin

Template powered live search for any WordPress theme. Compatible with Relevanssi search!

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search enables ajax live search for your search forms. It won’t swamp you with settings, and generally, Relevanssi Live Ajax Search works without any modifications necessary. If you want to customize it, you have complete control over how it works and what it does.

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search displays the search results using templates. You can easily override the default templates from your theme to make the results look the way you want them to look.

Works best with Relevanssi

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search only provides you with live search results. To get really good results, use Relevanssi, Relevanssi Premium or Relevanssi Light. Relevanssi Live Ajax Search automatically uses Relevanssi to power the search results if Relevanssi is installed and active. However, you don’t need Relevanssi; Relevanssi Live Ajax Search also works with the default WP search.

Changes from SearchWP Live Ajax Search

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search is a fork of SearchWP Live Ajax Search. I forked it from version 1.6.1 because it looked like SearchWP Live Ajax Search wasn’t getting updates anymore. I also wanted to improve the Relevanssi compatibility.

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search drops all SearchWP compatibility. You can use SearchWP Live Ajax Search, which has built-in SearchWP support.

The widget has also been removed. It was unnecessary and outdated.

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search can now take over the Gutenberg core/search search form.

This plugin is on GitHub

Feel free to open up issues at
https://github.com/msaari/relevanssi-live-ajax-search.

Installation

Install the plugin from the WordPress plugin screen.
Activate the plugin.
That’s it! Most of the time, that’s all you need.

If Relevanssi Live Ajax Search does not automatically attach itself to your search form, you can enable it by adding a single HTML5 data attribute (data-rlvlive="true") to the input field of your search form. You can find more information in the plugin documentation.

FAQ

How do I create a custom search results template

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search uses a template loader, making it easy to replace the search results. There is a templates folder in the plugin folder, which includes search-results.php. This file is the template used to output search results. To customize the search results:

Create a folder called relevanssi-live-ajax-search in your theme directory.
Copy the search-results.php file into the new folder.
Relevanssi Live Ajax Search will now use that file to show the results.

If you want to override the default CSS styles, you can remove them this way:

add_filter( 'relevanssi_live_search_base_styles', '__return_false' );

This filter hook removes the base styles that control the live search result position.

wp_dequeue_style( 'relevanssi-live-search' );

This removes the actual search result styles.

I’m using Astra, Storefront, or Divi, and this plugin doesn’t work

It does, Astra search form is just designed in a way that hides the search results. You can find solutions in the plugin documentation. The easiest solution is adding this to your theme functions.php:

add_filter( 'relevanssi_live_search_add_result_div', '__return_false' );

I want to change the number of results shown

There’s a filter for that! Add this to your theme functions.php or in a code snippet:

add_filter( 'relevanssi_live_search_posts_per_page', function() { return 10; } );

This will show 10 results. You can adjust the number as you wish.

I’m using WPML and get no results!

For some reason, the combination of Relevanssi Live Ajax Search, Relevanssi and WPML leads to problems. To solve this problem, use the WP_Query mode of fetching the results. To activate the mode, add this to your theme functions.php:

add_filter( 'relevanssi_live_search_mode', function() { return 'wp_query'; } );

This will make Relevanssi Live Ajax Search use a different method of fetching the results. This method is compatible with WPML. This method uses the search-results-query.php template instead of the default search-results.php template in Relevanssi Live Ajax Search, so take note if you want to customize the template to use the right base template for your customization.

Changelog

2.4

New filter hook relevanssi_live_search_template_function lets you override the default template function used to display the results.
Removes the unnecessary origin_id parameter.
If Relevanssi is active, Live Ajax Search makes sure min_chars cannot be lower than the minimum word length in Relevanssi.
When you remove letters from the search terms and go below the min_chars value, the results disappear instead of showing the spinner.

2.3.1

Fixes the bugs in search results placement introduced in 2.3.

2.3

The messages template is no longer loaded with AJAX. Instead, it is included in the JS localization. If you want to load it with AJAX, have the relevanssi_live_ajax_search_ajax_messages filter hook return true.
If the parent element is set with the rlv-parentel attribute and located away from the input field, the results will be placed under the parent element and not under the input field.
If the window is resized and that makes the search form hidden, the search results will also be removed.

2.2

The search form now also responds to the input event, which makes the search respond to context menu paste.
You can now override the default messages template by placing your custom template in the relevanssi-live-ajax-search directory in your theme.
New filter hook relevanssi_live_search_messages_template can be used to filter the messages template.
The filter hook relevanssi_live_search_get_template_part has an extra parameter for the context of the template: it can be results or messages, depending which template is loaded.

2.1

Stops errors when editing a page with a Gutenberg search block in it.
New parameter static_offset helps when the JS counts the result box offset wrong. Setting this to false may solve these problems.
Fixes missing spinners: spinners only appeared in the first search form of the page.

2.0.1

Renames the has-spinner class to rlv-has-spinner to avoid collisions with other plugins.
Include an updated version of spinner SCSS in the plugin instead of getting an outdated version from npm.

2.0.0

The relevanssi_live_search_control_plugins_during_search functionality has been removed.
The search now uses a CSS spinner instead of the old Javascript spinner.
Improved accessibility: the instructions for screen reader users are moved from the aria-label parameter to a separate span element that is hidden from sight.

1.2.2

Fixes the relevanssi_live_search_base_styles filter hook, which was in reverse: now it works as expected and disables styles when you give it false.

1.2.1

Adds automatic hijack for WooCommerce product search form.

1.2.0

The way this plugin uses query_posts() can lead to problems (for example with WPML). It is now possible to use a new WP_Query instead, which is safer.
New filter hook relevanssi_live_search_mode controls which mode is used: query_posts (the default value) is the old way, any other value uses WP_Query.
There’s a new template file search-results-query.php. This template is used for the WP_Query method.

1.1.0

Improved accessibility: screen reader users get better notifications of what’s happening.
Improved accessibility: the default location for the search results is now the next tab stop from the search form, within div#rlvlive_1.
Removes JQuery migration deprecation warnings.
The search results now show the total number of results found. These changes are in the default template, so if you’re using a custom template, check the default template.
New filter hook relevanssi_live_search_status_location controls where the total is displayed (‘before’, ‘after’ or nowhere for any other value, in which case only the screen reader status is added).
New filter hook relevanssi_live_search_add_result_div controls whether an extra div is added for the results.
If Relevanssi is available, searches that find no results show ‘Did you mean’ suggestions.

1.0.0

First version based on the version 1.6.1 of SearchWP Live Ajax Search.