Hi there,
Thanks for a great theme!
I’m finding that our web visitors look over the search icon and don’t realize that there’s a search bar there, because the field is hidden by default.
How can I expand the search bar and have it be directly placed in the menu navigation? I don’t want it to be hidden or be a drop-down..
Please advise and thanks for your help!
James
It’s a little bit of custom work, so if you aren’t comfortable coding you’ll have to find someone. I did this recently and my own steps were:
1. Replaced searchform.php with my own (so widgets would be replaced with mine too; not necessary, you could just use the theme default)
2. Edited the div for the search out of the menu in menu-header.php and menu-header-center.php (one or the other, I forget which), and instead had a div that uses the WP function get_search_form()
3. Styled my new div using CSS to sit at the right of the menu, use my own icon, etc.
Also just a comment, but this method of click/tap to expand search is quickly becoming a standard on the web and specifically mobile devices.
You will see this on the YouTube site on mobile, TIME magazine on desktop and mobile, New York Times on desktop and mobile, NBCnews.com, hundreds more as they do revamp for mobile, often based on Bootstrap or similar grid/masonry layouts, etc.
I only mention this as a “trend” and the reason why Radu and co did it this way. It wasn’t a unique design choice, but the way things are going as folks move more to a “mobile first” layout (sigh).
