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A tricky situation for Google Maps and seach box

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:41 am
by noseyparker
Ok, I have a lovely site with all elements split into many different php pages.

One of the sidebars is my searchbox - this works fine when I am on the page I am wanting to search - ie the maps page.

HOWEVER, when I am on another page that uses the search box (ie the homepage) how do I force it to open the maps/results page?

I know this is base level stupid, and the question really is:
how do I tell my form enquiry to open results on another page!?

Re: A tricky situation for Google Maps and seach box

Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 3:44 pm
by Eric!
When someone hits search and starts your script, you can check the current URL and redirect via a header(location) call, but you'll need to pass a parameter to tell the search page to continue to execute your query.

Depending on the structure of your site you can try one of these $_SERVER variables
$REQUEST_URI
$PHP_SELF
$SCRIPT_NAME

for info see http://php.about.com/od/learnphp/qt/_SERVER_PHP.htm

So check the url, then pass the user to your page url with a ?do=search tag so that when your user is redirected to your map page, the URL gets parsed and the search is executed without them having to hit search again.
header("Location: http://yourdomain.com/mappage.php?do=search");

Does this make sense? Maybe someone knows an easier way, but that's how I would try it.

FYI here is a little snippet of how to parse the URL line easily

Code: Select all

<?php
  switch (@$_GET['do'])                                
  {
    case "search":
     // display page, run search automatically
    break;
 
    default:                                             
     // normal call to page, display page
  }
?>