How to Change "Search Yields no Result Text"

easy, just enable the core Locale module and create a new 'language'. Then, search for the text 'blue smurf' and edit the corresponding string. more info at http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/locale

Yeah enabling a translation adds a lot of overhead to just change one line, but unfortunately it is the only way it can be done without editing search.module. A noresult search calls the search_help implentation of hook help directly. There is no way to override it as it is not given a custom theme function or form.

The search module really needs the ability to be customized a lot more. For instance, I seek the ability to index only nodes of a certain type so I am not filling the search index with things that I do not need indexed. Also the ability to make your own no results field seems like a feature that should be in there as it is trivial.

Here's the patch I used to easily modify the text displayed when no search results are returned. It does involve a patch to core but if you are not adverse to such things or can easily track them with source control (as I do) then it's a bit neater than trying to trick the theme into doing it for you.

Index: /public_html/modules/search/search.module
===================================================================
--- /public_html/modules/search/search.module	(revision 314)
+++ /public_html/modules/search/search.module	(working copy)
@@ -91,6 +91,15 @@
 '\x{4e00}-\x{9fbb}\x{f900}-\x{fad9}');
 
 /**
+ * Default text to display when no search match found
+ */
+define('SEARCH_NO_RESULT_DEFAULT', '<ul>
+  <li>Check if your spelling is correct.</li>
+  <li>Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: <em>"blue smurf"</em> will match less than <em>blue smurf</em>.</li>
+  <li>Consider loosening your query with <em>OR</em>: <em>blue smurf</em> will match less than <em>blue OR smurf</em>.</li>
+</ul>');
+
+/**
  * Implementation of hook_help().
  */
 function search_help($section) {
@@ -103,11 +112,7 @@
     case 'admin/settings/search':
       return '<p>'. t('The search engine works by maintaining an index of the words in your site\'s content. You can adjust the settings below to tweak the indexing behaviour. Note that the search requires cron to be set up correctly.') .'</p>';
     case 'search#noresults':
-      return t('<ul>
-<li>Check if your spelling is correct.</li>
-<li>Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: <em>"blue smurf"</em> will match less than <em>blue smurf</em>.</li>
-<li>Consider loosening your query with <em>OR</em>: <em>blue smurf</em> will match less than <em>blue OR smurf</em>.</li>
-</ul>');
+      return variable_get('search_no_result_text', t(SEARCH_NO_RESULT_DEFAULT));
   }
 }
 
@@ -228,6 +233,10 @@
   $form['indexing_settings']['minimum_word_size'] = array('#type' => 'textfield', '#title' => t('Minimum word length to index'), '#default_value' => variable_get('minimum_word_size', 3), '#size' => 5, '#maxlength' => 3, '#description' => t('The number of characters a word has to be to be indexed. A lower setting means better search result ranking, but also a larger database. Each search query must contain at least one keyword that is this size (or longer).'));
   $form['indexing_settings']['overlap_cjk'] = array('#type' => 'checkbox', '#title' => t('Simple CJK handling'), '#default_value' => variable_get('overlap_cjk', TRUE), '#description' => t('Whether to apply a simple Chinese/Japanese/Korean tokenizer based on overlapping sequences. Turn this off if you want to use an external preprocessor for this instead. Does not affect other languages.'));
 
+  // No result text:
+  $form['no_results'] = array('#type' => 'fieldset', '#title' => t('No Results Text'));
+  $form['no_results']['search_no_result_text'] = array('#type' => 'textarea', '#title' => t('No results message'), '#default_value' => t(variable_get('search_no_result_text', SEARCH_NO_RESULT_DEFAULT)), '#description' => t('Text to display when no results returned for search'));
+  
   // Per module settings
   $form = array_merge($form, module_invoke_all('search', 'admin'));

One simple approach is to use templates. You can created a template called page-search.tpl.php. Then check if the page contains no results. If so, do some replacing. For example:

$check = '<li>Check if your spelling is correct.</li>';
if(strpos($content,$check){
  $content = str_replace('blue','physics',$content);
  $content = str_replace('smurf','journals',$content);
}

I find it easiest to do this in template.php
For this example, I want to replace "blue smurf" with "asset management" :-

function _phptemplate_variables($hook, $vars = array()) {
  if ($hook == 'page') {
    //annihilate smurfs :)
    if (false !== strpos($vars['content'], "blue smurf"))
      {
        $vars['content'] = str_replace("blue smurf", "asset management", $vars['content']);
        $vars['content'] = str_replace("blue OR smurf", "asset OR management", $vars['content']);
      }
  }
  return $vars;
} 

This results in:

• Check if your spelling is correct.
• Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: "asset management" will match less than asset management.
• Consider loosening your query with OR: asset management will match less than asset OR management.

Instead of hacking the _phptemplate_variables function:

You can create a function in your template: MYTHEME_box($title, $content, $region = 'main')
And check if $title equals "Your search yielded no results"
And update the $content to show whatever you prefer.

This is definitly much more efficient then having the if check in the _phptemplate_variables function.

cheers,

Just to help others like me who are still newbs to drupal (and potentially even newbs to php) I've added an example of what this function would look like so people can copy and paste at their desire. This function goes into the template.php file:

<?php

function MYTHEME_box($title, $content, $region = 'main') {
  if ($title == 'Your search yielded no results')
  {
    $content = '<ul>';
    $content .= '<li>Check if your spelling is correct.</li>';
    $content .= '<li>Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: <em>"asset management"</em> will match less than <em>asset management</em>.</li>';
    $content .= '<li>Consider loosening your query with <em>OR</em>: <em>asset management</em> will match less than <em>asset OR management</em>.</li>';
    $content .= '</ul>';
  }
  $output = '<h2 class="title">'. $title .'</h2><div>'. $content .'</div>';
  return $output;
}

?>

I have used this code so I can change the title and content that comes back if there are no results but it is duplicating it - the default content that sits in search.module (with blue smurf) and my edited version underneath it. The title doesn't repeat though, just the content - can anyone help?

function link2_box($title, $content, $region = 'main') {
  if ($title == 'Your search yielded no results')
  {
    $title = 'Sorry, we couldn\'t find what you were looking for';
    $content .= '<p>Check if your spelling is correct.</p>';
    $content .= '<p>Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: for example <em>"green energy"</em> will match less than <em>green energy</em>.</p>';
    $content .= '<p>Consider loosening your query with <em>OR</em>: for example <em>green energy</em> will match less than <em>green OR energy</em>.</p>';
  }
  $output = '<div style="margin:10px"><h3>'. $title .'</h3>'. $content .'</div>';
  return $output;
}

results:

Sorry, we couldn't find what you were looking for

    * Check if your spelling is correct.
    * Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: "blue smurf" will match less than blue smurf.
    * Consider loosening your query with OR: blue smurf will match less than blue OR smurf.

Check if your spelling is correct.

Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: for example "green energy" will match less than green energy.

Consider loosening your query with OR: for example green energy will match less than green OR energy.

Just copy search-result.tpl.php and search-results.tpl.php from /modules/search into your own theme, clear cache and you are away.

search-result.tpl.php - individual results
search-results.tpl.php - the wrapper for each result with the no results text too.

I realise the question goes on to ask about the smurf part but google is ranking this highly for: How to Change "Search Yields no Result Text"

Thanks for all contributions to this. I finally used preprocess function because this doesn't alter the theme function itself, it change the text before it is passes to theme.

/**
* Modify search result text
*/
function MYTHEME_preprocess_box(&$vars) {
  if ($vars['title'] == t('Your search yielded no results')) {
	$vars['content'] = '<ul>';
    $vars['content'] .= '<li>Check if your spelling is correct.</li>';
    $vars['content'] .= '<li>Remove any quotes around phrases</li>';
    $vars['content'] .= '<li>Add "or" as in "restaurant OR cafe"</li>';
    $vars['content'] .= '</ul>';
  }
}

?>

To make this work in D8 without modifying core code or writing preproccess functions, modify your base theme's item-list--search-results.html.twig file in your /theme/ThemeName/templates/* folder (or subfolder) to add the following code to override the empty message:

{% set empty = empty|merge({'#markup': 'Your No Results message HTML Goes Here'}) %}

For example, if you a using Classy as your base theme, your new /themes/MyTheme/templates/overrides/item-list--search-results.html.twig file would look like :

{% extends "item-list.html.twig" %}
{#
/**
 * @file
 * Theme override for an item list of search results.
 *
 * Available variables:
 * - items: A list of items. Each item contains:
 *   - attributes: HTML attributes to be applied to each list item.
 *   - value: The content of the list element.
 * - title: The title of the list.
 * - list_type: The tag for list element ("ul" or "ol").
 * - attributes: HTML attributes to be applied to the list.
 * - empty: A message to display when there are no items. Allowed value is a
 *   string or render array.
 * - context: An list of contextual data associated with the list. For search
 *   results, the following data is set:
 *   - plugin: The search plugin ID, for example "node_search".
 *
 * @see template_preprocess_item_list()
 */
#}
{%
  set classes = [
    'search-results',
    context.plugin ~ '-results',
  ]
%}
{% set attributes = attributes.addClass(classes) %}
{% set empty = empty|merge({'#markup':
"
<h2 class='no-search-results'>Your search yielded no results</h2>
<ul>
<li>Check if your spelling is correct.</li>
<li>Remove quotes around phrases to search for each word individually. <em>bike shed</em> will often show more results than <em>'bike shed'</em>.</li>
<li>Consider loosening your query with <em>OR</em>. <em>bike OR shed</em> will often show more results than <em>bike shed</em>.</li>
</ul>
"
}) %}

Is it possible to add a block instead of plain text if the search does not produce results? I tried entering with this:

'search # noresults': return echo views_embed_view ('view_candidature', 'block_177');

but it does not work. Can someone help me?