From a button on the details page, return the user to search results page rather than full list of db entries?

Hi, I have a search page with a pull-down menu that allows people to view only db entries with the status of Yes, No or Maybe. When someone selects Yes and clicks search, they get a page containing only db entries that have status=Yes. When someone clicks a details link, they see the full details page and that's all great. However, there's a "back to results" button on that details page that simply returns the user to a page containing all of the db entries, not the search results they were viewing.

Is there a way to dynamically link that button to whichever search results page the user originally came from? I can't figure this one out! Thanks!!

How are you doing the search? That should happen automatically with our search server behavior.

Hi Ray, I think I know what my problem might be. I actually have two separate "results" pages. One is the main, unsorted listing page that displays everything in the db. The other is the results page that only displays the search results. I made it this way because I was having trouble getting back to displaying *all* entries because it seemed like the search query wasn't resetting. It would still show only the results of the last search rather than all entries. This would persist even if I entered the URL to the main listing page without any search parameters. Does this make sense?

Yes. You can usually pass the form button name in the url to reset the search otherwise it will persist. Using that technique instead of a separate page should solve your problems.

Thanks, Ray. Since I've done so many customizations to the results and details pages, I went ahead and regenerated clean ones using DA Pages and then copied the relevant bits over to my custom pages and the results page is showing the search results, not all of the entries. This time, however, I included the search form at the top, which has the option to show all and that way users will be able to view the data any way they like. I guess I was overthinking some of this. Thanks for your prompt help!

One more pesky thing going on here. The dropdown menu in the search form at the top of the results page always reverts back to having the default selected - which is "All" - when returning there after clicking the 'Back to Results' button on any details page. It shows the correct count of entries ("1 - 20 of 149" for example) for whichever generated the search results page, but menu item selected is always "All." Is there a way to have it select the one that the user searched and is actually representative of the results on that page? I think I've done something like this before, but I can't figure it out. Thanks!

You can save the selected value in the session and re-select the value from the session. If you attach a copy of the results page I can help with that.

Great, thanks. Page attached!

Add this code to the top of the page:

<?php

if (isset($_GET["Search"]) || isset($_GET["Search_x"])) {

  @session_start();

  $_SESSION['searchStatus'] = $_GET['status'];

}

?>

and then change the select list option from:

<option value="<?php echo $row_WADAMenustatus['status']?>"<?php if (!(strcmp($row_WADAMenustatus['status'], (isset($_GET["status"])?$_GET["status"]:"")))) {echo "selected=\"selected\"";} ?>><?php echo $row_WADAMenustatus['status']?></option>

to:

<option value="<?php echo $row_WADAMenustatus['status']?>"<?php if (!(strcmp($row_WADAMenustatus['status'], (isset($_SESSION['searchStatus'])?$_SESSION['searchStatus']:"")))) {echo "selected=\"selected\"";} ?>><?php echo $row_WADAMenustatus['status']?></option>

That worked perfectly! Thanks again for all of your help, Ray. I feel like a some of this stuff is pretty clear to me, but a lot of it is just beyond reach. This forum has saved my bacon on more than one occasion!