Professional SharePoint® 2007 Web Content Management Development: Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007

13.5. Advertising OpenSearch Capability

OpenSearch is a standard for describing how to submit queries to a search engine and how the search results are returned. SharePoint can be configured to provide search results to a client that understands the OpenSearch schema file.

For more information on OpenSearch, see www.opensearch.org.

13.5.1. Telling the Browser Where to Search

Internet Explorer and Firefox provide in-browser search capability by routing the query to a search provider. These browsers detect sites that can participate as search providers by reading a tag in the page that indicates the site supports the OpenSearch standard. When a user browses to sites that support this standard for search, Internet Explorer advertises that search is available by turning the browser search button orange.

The OpenSearch standard defines a schema for an XML file that describes how to submit search queries to a site. The basic format of the file is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
  <ShortName>Short name</ShortName>
  <Description>Description</Description>
  <Url type="text/html" template="http://url?k={searchTerms}"/>
  <SyndicationRight>open</SyndicationRight>
</OpenSearchDescription>

Listing 13-8 contains the XML that would use a SharePoint Search Center site.

Example 13-8. OpenSearch markup for a SharePoint Search Center site

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"> ...