WordPress makes use of search results templates, for example – product searches return results in a grid whereas posts typically get returned in a list.

This feature request is to provide the ability to search multiple post types at once.

Two features will be developed to achieve this:

1. Allow user to choose search results template for specific search widget and that one template will be used for all combined search results. This may look a little odd if you have posts being returned using the product search results as posts don’t have a price etc.

2. Or return search results with each template on a single page. e.g. if posts and products are selected to be searched in a widget then on results page:

150 articles found matching search string
(then show top X articles using posts template)

120 products found matching search string
(then show top X products using products template)

I still have questions in my mind about how pagination would then work – probably if they hit show more, or use pagination in the articles template then it would move to a page just showing page 2 of articles (and no products any longer). Similarly, if they clicked page 2 on the products template, it would then move to page 2 only using the products template and only showing products.

The browser back button would return the user back to the combined search results page, but if they’re on page 2 of the articles and they use the pagination button to view page 1, it would still just view page 1 of articles only (not combined).

Looking for feedback from users on this so I get it right.