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A search box, search field or search bar is a
graphical control element A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through dir ...
used in computer programs, such as
file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage files and folders. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files include creating, opening (e.g. viewing, playing, editing or pr ...
s or
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
s, and on
web site A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...
s. A search box is usually a single-line
text box type=search placeholder=An example text box, which can be used to search the English Wikipedia. A text box (input box), text field or text entry box is a control element of a graphical user interface, that should enable the user to input ...
or search icon (which will transform into a search box on click activity) with the dedicated function of accepting user input to be searched for in a database. Search boxes on web pages are usually used to allow users to enter a query to be submitted to a
Web search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
server-side script, where an
index Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...
database is queried for entries that contain one or more of the user's keyword research. Search boxes are commonly accompanied by a search button (sometimes indicated only by a magnifying glass symbol) to submit the search. However, the search button may be omitted as the user may press the enter key to submit the search, or the search may be sent automatically to present the user with real-time results. The search box is an integral part of the site search functionality, which is an important element of website design for content-rich websites. On some websites, site search is more prominent than on others. E-commerce typically use search boxes, and thus site search, as a primary navigation tool.


Common features

Depending on the particular implementation, a search box may be accompanied by a
drop-down list A drop-down list (abbreviated drop-down, or DDL; also known as a drop-down menu, drop menu, pull-down list, picklist) is a graphical control element, similar to a list box, that allows the user to choose one value from a list. When a drop-dow ...
to present the users with past searches or search suggestions. Search boxes may have other features to help the user, such as
autocomplete Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the ta ...
, search suggestions, a spelling checker, etc. Search boxes are often also accompanied by drop-down menus or other input controls to allow the user to restrict the search or choose what type of content to search for. In some cases, while users input search strings, the results of that string would also present on the content area updating in real-time. However, if the page choose this way to show results to users, the loading time is slower and may cause unresponsive lagging or browser crash. Hence, it is not recommend for small and medium size websites. Modern search box implementations make use of persistent connections to achieve both low-latency search experience and bandwidth improvement. However, for large, search-intensive web applications, a scalable server being able to handle a high number of concurrent persistent connections is needed. Such servers already exist. For example, a single instance of the
WebSocket WebSocket is a computer communications protocol, providing full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection. The WebSocket protocol was standardized by the IETF as in 2011. The current API specification allowing web applications ...
server provided by MigratoryDataMigratoryData website
/ref> could handle 240,000 autocomplete requests per second from 1 million concurrent users with a mean round-trip latency of 11.82
millisecond A millisecond (from '' milli-'' and second; symbol: ms) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth (0.001 or 10−3 or 1/1000) of a second and to 1000 microseconds. A unit of 10 milliseconds may be calle ...
s.


See also

*
Search suggest drop-down list A search suggest drop-down list is a query feature used in computing to show the searcher shortcuts, while the query is typed into a text box. Before the query is complete, a drop-down list with the suggested completions appears to provide opt ...
*
Web navigation Web navigation refers to the process of navigating a network of information resources in the World Wide Web, which is organized as hypertext or hypermedia. The user interface that is used to do so is called a web browser. A central theme in web ...


References

Graphical control elements {{GUI-stub