General Information
The user search feature allows your visitor to search for a particular user or user group. User search offers the following functionality:
| - | Administrator can set up user search pages, configure which user groups can be searched and which user profile fields are available for search; |
| - | Visitors are able to search within user groups as set up by the administrator; |
| - | Search results are a list or users found with brief descriptions (additional details can be added by the admin via templates) |
| - | Each search result item provides links to the complete user profile, all listing by this user and a contact user page (can be modified via templates) |
Administrator can set up as many user search pages as desired. In order to create a user search page, create a new user page (see the corresponding chapter in the manual) with a “search_users” function of the “users” module. Please refer to the module/function reference for more information on setting up this page.
The layout of the search results page is configured via the search results template (by default called “user_search_results.tpl” or custom template(s) that contain the result_template parameter). By editing this template, the admin sets user profile fields to be displayed and configures field positions and layouts. Please refer to the default template for examples of the user search results layout.
Site Visitor Experience
When a visitor opens the search user page, he/she will see a search form. Visitor enters search criteria to the form fields and clicks the “Search” button. Following that, search results are displayed below. If no search criteria are entered, all users will appear in the search.
Search result page contains brief information about the users found (pretty much like listing search results page).
User search results are paginated, with controls to flip pages and set a total number of results per page located above and underneath the results block. To switch pages, click on the page number or on the “Next” or “Previous” links on the page. To change a number or results per page, select the desired number in the drop-down box labeled “Number of users per page”.
By default, there are three links below each result:
| - | “View All Listings” --- links to a page where all listings of the user are displayed, |
| - | “Contact User” --- links to a page with contact from, |
| - | “View Full Profile”--- links to a page with user’s profile information. |