Connect an In Focus Search Box to an In Focus web part

The In Focus Search Box (Atlas) web part allows users to type into a text box to apply a text filter to search results. A Search Box can be connected to many different In Focus Results web parts as long as they are all on the same page, so that the user only has to enter their query once to filter multiple different web parts returning different types of content or using different styles.

The default Atlas Listing Pages use In Focus web parts connected to an In Focus Search Box web part (and an In Focus Filters web part which will be discussed elsewhere). When we talk about In Focus Results in this article, this covers many different web parts.

Please see here for a full list: List of In Focus Results Web Parts

In this article we will explain the default configuration and some options around it so you can apply this to other pages or create new Listing pages easily.

Default configuration

This is the basic configuration that will usually be best to apply unless you have specific requirements. 

To configure an In Focus Results web part to filter based on text in a search box, follow these steps:

1. Add the desired In Focus web part to your page and configure it as needed. You can review the article here for detailed configuration options: Configuration for In Focus web parts (Atlas 5.0+)
   
   
2. Add the In Focus Search Box web part to the same page as your results web part(s) ensuring you do not pick the "legacy" version:
   
   
   
3. Edit the In Focus Results web part and in the Connections section of the settings, set the following options:
   
   
   • Dynamic value means the value is fed from some other component - in this case the Search box. A static value would not allow the Search box to be used.
   • The type of dynamic source is just selecting either an In Focus Search box, or Page environment e.g. metadata from the page or URL. In this case we will use In Focus Search Box.
   • In the "Use query from this component" box you should then see a list of Search Box web parts found on the current page. If you have changed the name of the Search box then you may see the custom name listed rather than "In Focus Search Box" - as in the screenshot above.
     
     
4. Usually there is no need to provide a default value and you can just leave this checkbox unselected. The Result Source chosen for the In Focus web part will provide a pre-determined set of content so the default query essentially is already set by the Result Source.
   
   In some cases you may want to provide a default query so that some filter is applied without the user typing into the search box, but note that this will be overridden by any query applied in the Search Box - it will not be an additional filter. This is usually not recommended as it is likely to confuse users.