The Search Bar User Interface

The Search bar enables users to launch searches and view the results. When the user clicks the Search button, the search bar appears in an area to the left of the browser called an Explorer bar. The results of the search appear to the right. Users can now easily move between different items in a search results list, and more efficiently find the information they are looking for.

The Search bar is an integral part of Internet Explorer. Here are some guidelines you can follow when designing your own Search bar to ensure it works well within the Explorer bar.

• Result pages should always provide the ability to launch another search, with buttons for modifying and running the search in the top 20 percent of the content area.
• Pages should not be longer than the height of the browser. The goal is to let the user see the entire page without using the scroll bar.
• Pages should fit within the 200-pixel width of the Search bar. If you use tables or other HTML layout elements, be careful to make sure they fit within the available width. Otherwise, you force the appearance of horizontal scroll bars, which take space away from your content and force the user to do more work. ToolTips allow for abstract or meta-information to be presented without consuming extra space.
• Any links on the page that don't target the main area should be used with caution. The Search bar has no visible navigation controls. If you change the content in the Search bar, you must provide your own navigation controls in your content.
• You can use Dynamic HTML, ActiveX technology, Java, and cascading style sheets to achieve dynamic effects and implement multimedia. Just remember that the space for the Search bar is limited.
• The default size for the Search bar is 200 pixels wide and the full vertical size of the browser window. The user will be able to resize this area.
• The Search bar should display its results in the main browser area, whose target is main; you reference it similar to the way you would reference a frame called main in a frameset. To have results appear in the main browser window, set the target=_main, and to update the Search bar, set the target=_self. The default can be set by using <BASE TARGET=_MAIN>.
• Scroll bars will appear if the content in the browser band is larger than will fit in the visible area.

Testing your content

The easiest way to test your own content is to temporarily replace the following registry key that Internet Explorer uses to populate the Search bar. If you change this key to point to your own pages, when you click on the Search button it will load your content instead of the default content. It's important to save the original registry key so you can return the Search bar to its default behavior when you have finished testing.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]

"Search Bar"=http://home.microsoft.com/search/search.asp "

To change the registry key to what you want, change the URL above to your URL and save it as a .reg file.

Note
Internet Explorer does not provide a way to reset this URL, so it is not recommended that you allow users to set this on their own.

Warning
Editing the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from editing your registry can be resolved. Edit it at your own risk.