Skip to main content

Add A Customized Search Box To Your Blog

Photo courtesy of Francesco S on Flickr

I thought recently how useful it would be to be able to search a blog to find posts that interest me and apart from the blog archive in the sidebar I didn't know how I could do this. Then I noticed the search box gadget on Blogger. Is this new? I've only just noticed it but knowing my powers of observation it's probably been there for quite a while!

So I added it. And was a bit underwhelmed to be honest. It's a search box that works but.........it's grey and just a bit boring. It didn't fit in with my blog either. I like tweaking my blog and enjoy customizing things to make it look a bit more interesting and colourful. So the grey search box didn't stay for long.

No, I added a customized version.

You can see it up there.

 It's quite nice isn't it? I think so anyway and it fits in with the rest of my blog.
Here's the code for it courtesy of Tweak Peak. It's fairly simple to do - just copy the code and add it to the HTML "Add a gadget" in Blogger. 
Tweak Peak has added some changes you can make to the code to alter the search bar in various ways too, such as text size, border thickness and colours. 

One thing I could not do though was to change the colour of the search box text no matter how many times I tried. The default colour is grey which I didn't like so I deleted the text altogether and made my own text graphic in Paint Shop Pro which I then uploaded to Photobucket. I then added the html code for the graphic to the beginning of the search box code and now I have my own tweaked search box {that works!} Anyone wanting to read more posts about a particular thing I've posted about previously just need to add their search words to the box and press Go! and up comes a page with the relevant posts.

I did find a really nice search box on another site but soon realized that while it looked great it didn't actually work......


Comments

  1. I love the search bar! Since I use my blog as somewhat of a journal it makes it easy for me to look things up. I love how you prettied yours up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm so excited about your find! The blogger search never worked on my blog and I hated not being able to search. This solved the problem - and it looks great. Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Your comments and questions are very welcome!
If you would prefer to contact me directly please use the contact form on my "get in touch" page.

Popular posts from this blog

Combining Soldering And Enamel

The need to make cute, brightly coloured enamel studs propelled me into the world of combining soldering with enamel a couple of years ago. I knew from reading up on it that it was possible to enamel and solder on the same piece but wasn't too confident I was able to do it back then. It was a slightly embarrassing occurance that made me just get on with - I'd made some enamel studs with glued on stud posts. I'd used 2 part epoxy resin which was a job in itself as it set hard after 5 minutes so I had to keep mixing more up. The finished studs looked ok but that little voice in my head kept asking "are you sure you want to use glue?" I wasn't but didn't think I had any other way to do it so I used glue. I sold my first pair and merrily sent them on their way to Canada. A couple of week later the buyer got in touch to say the stud post had come off one of the earrings and the other was hanging off. I was mortified, apologized profusely and refunded her m

Etching Silver Using Nail Art Stamps

So my love/hate relationship with etching sterling silver continues. I've tried a few times now and always end up with different results most of them not that great to be honest. I've tried connecting the silver and a piece of copper to a 9v battery and also heating the ferric nitrate. Sometimes the results are good sometimes not so good. I currently have an etched piece of silver sheet waiting to be reticulated and rid it of the mess that is the etched "pattern".  I now know that using stamps and Stayz On ink just doesn't work with silver - the time needed to etch using ferric nitrate is much longer than etching copper and the ink starts to wear away after about an hour. This results in the pattern being patchy as the resist is eaten away and the silver ends up quite lumpy and course looking. I have yet to try using pnp paper. I don't know why but it all seems a bit of a faff to do. I don't have a laser printer so would need to find somewhere or

Embossing Metal With My Sizzix Bigshot

I must admit up until a few weeks ago I was vaguely familiar with the name Sizzix but as to what you actually did with a "Sizzix" I was completely in the dark! That was until I stumbled across a video from Vintaj showing how you could use their embossing folders with a Bigshot to create designs on metal ("metal" - my favourite word after chocolate!) I was really impressed and itching to have a go, I just needed a Bigshot........ I waited a few weeks then when the urge to possess one overcame me I went out debit card at the ready..............and the shop had sold out! So I trundled off to The Range on the off chance and came home clutching my own surprisingly heavy pink and black wonder machine. It sat on the dining room table for a couple of days while I waited for the embossing folders I'd ordered online to arrive then the time came to start playing! I started with some pre-cut 24g copper hearts and the Wildflower Vines and the Butterfly Swirls Deco