How can I include meta box content when searching?

Question

When I search on my site it currently doesn't search the content in my custom meta boxes.

How can I include this content when searching?

I'm registering my meta boxes as follows:

$meta_box['recipe'] = array(
    'id' => 'recipe-meta-details',
    'title' => 'Recipe Meta Details',
    'context' => 'normal',
    'priority' => 'high',
    'fields' => array(
         array(
            'name' => 'Country',
            'desc' => 'Country dish is from',
            'id' => 'recipe_country',
            'type' => 'text',
            'default' => ''
        ),
        array(
            'name' => 'Serves',
            'desc' => 'Number of people dish serves',
            'id' => 'recipe_serves',
            'type' => 'text',
            'default' => ''
        ),
         array(
            'name' => 'Ingredients',
            'desc' => '',
            'id' => 'recipe_ingredients',
            'type' => 'wysiwyg',
            'default' => ''
        ),
         array(
            'name' => 'Method',
            'desc' => '',
            'id' => 'recipe_method',
            'type' => 'wysiwyg',
            'default' => ''
        )
    )
);

And displaying them like this in my custom post archive loop:

$recipe_country = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'recipe_country', true);
$recipe_serves = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'recipe_serves', true);
$recipe_ingredients = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'recipe_ingredients', true);
$recipe_method = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'recipe_method', true);

<div id="post-content-left">
<h3>Ingredients</h3>
<?php echo $recipe_ingredients; ?>
</div>

<div id="post-content-right">
<h3>Method</h3>
<?php echo $recipe_method; ?>
</div>

Thanks

Answer 1

try the Relevanssi plugin.

Answer 2

I had this problem recently. I ended up using WP_Query to amend my site's search results.

I've abridged some of the code, but essentially this is what I did. Edit your theme's search.php.

First off, I create an array of arguments called "meta_query". You can also do this for "tax_query" if you have custom taxonomies attached to your Custom Post Type. You'll likely need more than one of these if you have more than one field in your meta box(es).

<?php
    $aquarium_H = array(
        'key' => 'aquarium_H', //name of your meta field
        'value' => $_GET["s"], // value from WordPress search bar. this is sanitized by WP
        'type' => 'numeric', // string/numeric/whatever
        'compare' => '<=' // this can be "LIKE" or "NOT LIKE". most mySQL operators
    );

    $meta_query[] = $aquarium_H; // add to meta_query array

Next I check to see if this array exists and if it does I put it as the meta_query value of an $args array.

    if (isset($meta_query)) {
        $args = array(
            'post_type' => 'species', // can be "any"
            'meta_query' => $meta_query
        );
    }
?>

This means that when I use the following line, the search value (derived from $_GET["s"], which is the default name of the WordPress search box) is looked for in the meta boxes you've specified.

<?php $query = new WP_Query ( $args ); ?>

You then need to adapt the code on your theme somewhat. At this point, I don't think "just" have_posts will work - you need to specify the $query object.

<?php if ($query->have_posts()) : ?>

    <?php while ( $query->have_posts() ) : $query->the_post(); ?>
        <div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
            <?php /* the_content could go here. I use different code */ ?>
        </div>
    <?php endwhile; ?>

<?php else : ?>

Apologies if this is a bit confusing.. !