Consolidate search block and search form theme function

Does maintenance-page.tpl.php need to be updated in a similar way, or do these (installation and update) pages need a default placement for the search form? NB. The search module is disabled by default.

http://drupal.org/node/220093 has spent 4 days on this.

It’s non-standard, unnecessary now the search form block only shows one search box (two in 5.x), restrictive and misleading, suggesting that other boxes should just appear when the module is enabled. Also, placing in the right sidebar (by removing everything from the left) doesn’t work on the blocks page.

Using this patch would simplify the page.tpl.php and the theme config page (If the option were removed) making the process of configuration by users more consistent. Do you see a problem with this yet?

I think changing how the configuration is laid out will do little to address the issues I have mentioned, though I agree such changes should be in 7.x.

Removing the code that treats a search box differently to other blocks does fix the issue, and brings the handling of search-boxes into line with the rest of drupal. I also think this approach could be snuck-in to 6.0, solving the confusion users face with this special treatment, while a longer-term approach is sought for 7.x.

If you want to improve the UI for configuring search forms, please open another issue (and close this as won't fix if you want).

I’m sure you are busy with critical issues, so I don’t expect a long discussion about this.

Search already provides a block – though in 5.x it looks wrong: this has been fixed in 6.x, so I see no reason to have the box. As Arancaytar says, themes can provide new regions to give flexibility.

We would need to adjust the admin page to delete this option, so it is a bigger change than I’d originally planned. Can anyone help, to get this RTBC?

So assigning a block that already exists (if search module is enabled) to left or right sidebar is too difficult for someone technically savvy enough to have deployed a release candidate?

This was intended to make search consistent with the treatment of other blocks: And to be a stop-gap solution, removing one source of support requests for the next year.

I’ll leave this at 7, but it is now a different issue. » Task ?

My view is that we don’t need the search box – just the search block. If it is manually placed in left or right sidebars at weight -10 (do we still have weights as well as drag&drop?) the current appearance will be preserved. Garland doesn’t need an extra region, but this approach will make it less confusing to use other regions available in any theme.

We would also need to remove any configuration of the search box from the admin pages. I assume dvessel was referring to the check-box in toggle display, in #4. This defaults to on when the module is enabled, so the box just appears, and the user doesn’t know why. Controlling it becomes a ‘search & destroy mission’ (no pun intended)

I assume the search form is what produces the contents of the search box or block? I don’t know if anything needs to change here.

All this makes me wonder about the concepts of box and block and the subtle differences between them. If every box were provided as a block instead, what problems would this create? ATM the theming can be controlled with separate templates. Other boxes would require new regions. Mission, primary/secondary menus? I think this would provide too much flexibility.

Suggestion:

It seems to me that the concept of box allows themes like Garland to give more control to the designer and less to the user. This is no bad thing, so long as the user can over-ride in an intuitive way.

I would suggest that enabling the module search provides a block which is automatically placed by the theme as now, but block – not box. This is disabled if the user actually places the block in a region. This would give intuitive control to the user and the theme designer could give a helpful suggestion to the user. Removing the block entirely would be accomplished by disabling the module. To avoid further confusion, the blocks admin page would have to say ‘< theme default >’ instead of ‘< none >’.

Both these changes could be implemented by the theme declaring a ‘pseudo-region’ intended only for the output of the search block, if it is not placed in a real region.