How to show images from attachments directly in search results?

[Alexander]

Hello,

on my photography site I heavily rely on attachments (obviously), and I also include media in search results. Since media doesn’t have a featured image, the photos show up in the search results as text only, which is a bit of a hindrance for visual content. 🙂

Is there a way to include the photo itself in the search results, just as if it were a featured image for a post?

Here’s what my search result for “Buckwheat” looks like right now: https://www.alex-kunz.com/?s=buckwheat – the first page is all attachments in this case, and it’s all text.

Thanks a lot
Alexander.

[Alexander]

*ping*

(I guess I shouldn’t have started this topic on the holiday weekend?;-)

[Tom]

Hi there,

Sorry about that! Not sure how this slipped through.

Tough one! I wonder if this would do it?:

add_filter( 'generate_show_excerpt', function( $show ) {
    if ( is_search() && is_attachment() ) {
        $show = false;
    }

    return $show;
} );

Documentation: http://docs.generatepress.com/
Adding CSS: http://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/
Ongoing Development: https://generatepress.com/ongoing-development

[Alexander]

Hello Tom,

no worries, no hurry – thanks for your reply!

Your filter didn’t work but it made me look at the docs for generate_show_excerpt (I’m linking it here in case someone else needs this), and I tried the example snippet from that document to show the full post in search results – and that works.

Best of all, it still shows my excerpts, since I have the “Read More” tag in all of my normal posts – or am I missing something here? Here’s what it looks like now: https://www.alex-kunz.com/page/2/?s=buckwheat (this result page contains both posts and attachments)

This leads to a follow-up question now: clicking on a search result image for an attachment opens the image file itself (because it’s the attachment page, I get it). Clicking on the image for a post in the search results open the post though (because it’s a Featured Image).

Is it possible that the images for attachments in search results (and only there) link to the attachment page instead?

Thanks
Alex.

[Tom]

Perfect!

Let’s see if this works:

add_filter( 'attachment_link', function( $link, $post_id ) {
    if ( is_search() ) {
        return get_permalink( $post_id );
    }

    return $link;
}, 10, 2 );

Let me know 🙂

Documentation: http://docs.generatepress.com/
Adding CSS: http://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/
Ongoing Development: https://generatepress.com/ongoing-development

[Alexander]

Thank you, Tom – unfortunately, that replaced the image with the link (I’m leaving it active so you can take a look), ie. the image itself doesn’t show anymore. Whoops!

[Tom]

Just made a change to the code above – can you give it another shot?

Documentation: http://docs.generatepress.com/
Adding CSS: http://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/
Ongoing Development: https://generatepress.com/ongoing-development

[Alexander]

Ooops, that resulted in a 500 Internal Server Error. :-} (I reverted it to the previous code)

Is there an error log that would help you?

[Tom]

That’s strange – what’s your most recent error_log entry say? The PHP syntax looks good.

I just tweaked it a little, but I’m not seeing why it would have errored on us: https://generatepress.com/forums/topic/how-to-show-images-attachments-in-search-results/#post-1001913

Documentation: http://docs.generatepress.com/
Adding CSS: http://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/
Ongoing Development: https://generatepress.com/ongoing-development

[Alexander]

Hello Tom, I updated the snippet with your latest tweak, it doesn’t make a difference. I deactivated the Relevanssi search plugin that I’m using, no difference either.

Oddly, the error_log doesn’t contain anything useful – there’s one lonely entry in there, but it’s not from my IP, or the server’s IP.

The PHP error log’s last entry is from two days ago.

Not sure what to do. If possible, I’d like to solve this riddle, but it isn’t high on my priority list. The fact that the photos do show up in the search results is the improvement that I really wanted.

Thank you
Alex.

[Tom]

To debug, does this output “hi” on the page?:

add_filter( 'attachment_link', function( $link, $post_id ) {
    if ( is_search() ) {
        var_dump( 'hi' );
        return get_permalink( $post_id );
    }

    return $link;
}, 10, 2 );

Documentation: http://docs.generatepress.com/
Adding CSS: http://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/
Ongoing Development: https://generatepress.com/ongoing-development

[Alexander]

Hello Tom, sorry for the late reply, I’ve been out of town.

That doesn’t make a difference. Nothing is output. The “500 Internal Server Error” is shown without any search results appearing first (ie. I search for “buckwheat” or whatever, and after a second or so, the 500 internal server error is shown).

Thanks
Alex.

[Tom]

Hmm, ok.

I have no idea if this will work, but let’s try:

add_filter( 'wp_get_attachment_link', function( $output, $id, $size, $permalink, $icon, $text, $attr ) {
    if ( ! is_search() ) {
        return $output;
    }

    $_post = get_post( $id );

    $image = wp_get_attachment_image( $_post->ID, 'large', $icon, $attr );

    return "<a href='" . get_permalink( $_post->ID ) . "'>$image</a>";
}, 10, 7 );

Documentation: http://docs.generatepress.com/
Adding CSS: http://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/
Ongoing Development: https://generatepress.com/ongoing-development

[Alexander]

Hello Tom,

a very late reply to this, I’m sorry! (I never received an email notification to it and thought we’d just leave it alone after my last reply:-) I saw your response only now when I posted a different question and looked at my forum profile.

And what can I say – this last one works! The images for attachments in search pages now link to the attachment pages. Images in posts still link to the post. Fabulous!

Thanks again & sorry that I didn’t see this any sooner.
Alex.

[Tom]

No problem! Glad I could help 🙂

Documentation: http://docs.generatepress.com/
Adding CSS: http://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/
Ongoing Development: https://generatepress.com/ongoing-development

[Author]

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