Advanced Search Box in Wordpress

Do you have some sort of database already which has all the data?

Basically there are 2 scenarios:

1. You have online database / external system, in this case WP can be "hooked up" with it via API ... Obviously need to see those systems and likely this is a custom piece to connect with those.

[list=2]You can setup WordPress to have all that data in the it's own database (how many records are there?) and then have a custom search... There are some plugins available or it may be a custom piece (if your data has 100k+ records - go with do custom, otherwise it will be a lot of pain and speed issues)[/list]

Sorry for a bit of generic response, but don't have a lot of info to go with :D

What we need is exactly this: two search forms (1.) http://flcourts18.org/?page_id=5135 and (2.) http://flcourts18.org/?page_id=5151. They should look and work exactly as seen here.

We were trying to use the WordPress plugin Media Library Assistant (Enhances the Media Library; powerful [mla_gallery] [mla_tag_cloud] [mla_term_list], taxonomy support, IPTC/EXIF/XMP/PDF processing, bulk/quick edit. Version 2.72) but it is so complicated that we got lost.

I was able setup the following tags, terms, descriptions in WordPress media (also see attached) so that a court administrator will simply upload each pdf and enter the information into the tags with each upload. The state standard is to make the pdf available to the public for download.

What we need it to make the forms work just as you see them and the results from the search show on the same page.

Here are the meta info that i setup in media library
Title
Name
Caption
Description
Categories
Att. Categories
Download Categories
Tags
Download Tags
AO-Topic/Subject
AO-Active/Inactive
AO-Administrative Order Number
AO-Category
AO-Issue Date
AO-Judge
AO-Rules
AO-Superseded Number
AO-Title
Appeals-5th DCA Number
Appeals-Appellants
Appeals-Appellees
Appeals-Attorneys of Record
Appeals-Case Number
Appeals-Decision by Judge
Appeals-Issue Date
Appeals-Oral Argument Attorneys
Appeals-Panel Presiding and Other Judges
Appeals-Reversed/Remanded/Affirmed Supreme Court flag
Appeals-Rules/Case Citation
Appeals-Subject Matter
Appeals-Supreme Court Number

Can you assist with this.
Advanced-Search-Bid.png

Sounds like you are well on the way with setting up media files - all categories, etc are in place.

I don't think that plugin has user facing search functionality - they seem to offer short codes, but that means you will be able to pre-select certain documents and display those : e.g. rulings by specific Judge. I don't see the standard "search" form in the plugin description where you can do custom multiple-field searches.

I did a quick search, looks like there are some plugins which allow users to search media files from the front end, one example is https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/media-search-enhanced/ (I haven't really tested it, just trying to find a case to proof the concept). Likely issue with out of the box plugins will be searching all the custom fields you added to the documents.

On the plus side - this is really doable, just needs some custom work. I am assuming based on the question that you are not a developer, so it's likely situation when you need to find one. I can help, but I guess it goes beyond the answer in this thread, ping me if want to chat and get a cost estimate.

thank you, i messaged you