Init Live Search – Smart, Slash Commands, REST API

Deliver an ultra-responsive search experience to your visitors — no page reloads, no jQuery, no lag. Init Live Search is a modern, lightweight, and fully accessible live search solution for WordPress — now with tag-aware matching, SEO metadata support, ACF integration, WooCommerce product filters, and customizable UI presets. It replaces the default <input name="s"> with a clean, intuitive search modal powered entirely by the WordPress REST API. Everything loads in real-time — with zero disruption to browsing flow. You get:

• Beautiful preset styles (fullscreen, topbar, or default)
• Fully keyboard accessible (↑ ↓ ← → Enter Esc)
• Slash commands (/recent, /tag, /id, etc.) for power users
• Quick Search tooltip triggered by selecting text
• Voice input via browser SpeechRecognition
• SEO-aware matching from popular plugins (Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO, etc.)
• ACF field support for advanced content types
• Local result caching and fallback logic
• Theme override support or option to disable all plugin CSS Perfect for content-heavy blogs, WooCommerce stores, or even headless sites. Every interaction is fast, fluid, and designed to work across devices.

This plugin is part of the Init Plugin Suite — a collection of minimalist, fast, and developer-focused tools for WordPress. GitHub repository: https://github.com/brokensmile2103/init-live-search

= 1.6.7 – June 4, 2025 =

• Internal refinements for long-term maintainability and performance
• Removed duplicate language detection logic (detect_language → unified detect_lang)
• Cleaned up legacy utility functions and renamed for clarity
• Standardized excerpt highlighting, thumbnail fallback, and WooCommerce integration logic
• Improved admin keyword generator for modal default input
• Enhanced bi-gram extraction from post titles
• Now supports locale-aware stop word filtering (Vietnamese, English)
• Outputs up to 7 randomized high-signal keywords for better UX
• Codebase deemed stable and feature-complete
• All core features are modular, reusable, and optimized for extensibility
• No major architectural changes planned beyond slash command expansions
• Improved JavaScript hook support for custom slash commands
• Developers can now reliably use ils:search-started to render their own commands from themes or plugins

= 1.6.6 – May 31, 2025 =

• Major fallback upgrade: added intelligent single-word fallback logic
• Automatically breaks long queries into single words if no results found
• Matches each word as full term only (e.g. sea won't match search)
• Each match is scored and weighted for relevance
• Improved result ranking with weight-based merge
• Dynamically ranks fallback results based on number of keyword hits
• Prioritizes stronger matches while still showing broader coverage
• SEO-aware fallback reuse
• Reuses existing SEO meta fields (title + description) in fallback queries
• Controlled by setting and init_plugin_suite_live_search_seo_meta_keys filter
• Full refactor: fallback logic moved to search-core.php
• Improves code maintainability and separation of concerns
• Paves the way for future optimizations like partial streaming

= 1.6.5 – May 30, 2025 =

• Introduced intelligent 1-line excerpt for all search results
• Automatically extracts a short snippet containing the search keyword from excerpt or content
• Falls back to get_the_excerpt() if no relevant match is found
• Keyword is highlighted within the snippet
• Mobile-optimized: excerpt is displayed as a single line with ellipsis (-webkit-line-clamp: 1)
• Fully integrated into existing REST API output
• Improved relevance ranking for title_excerpt and title_content modes
• Weighted scoring: title > excerpt > content
• Refactored result handler logic into modular subroutines
• Improves readability, performance, and extensibility

= 1.6.4 – May 30, 2025 =

• Enhanced slash command system and developer API
• Finalized init_plugin_suite_live_search_commands filter logic
• Register custom commands and handle them via JS events
• Added ils:result-clicked custom event
• Fires on result click with full metadata payload (id, url, type, etc.)
• Optimized voice search engine
• Language detection from <html lang> with fallback map
• Improved error handling and auto-stop logic
• Mic UI toggle and sessionStorage keyword injection

= 1.6.3 – May 29, 2025 =

• New slash commands: /day, /week, /month (requires Init View Count plugin)
• Fully supports infinite scroll and REST API for high-traffic sites
• Improved dynamic command registration
• Added search history commands: /history, /history_clear

= 1.6.2 – May 28, 2025 =

• New feature: Default Slash Command on Modal Open
• Preload /recent, /related, /popular, etc. based on page context
• Includes “Smart Detection” mode
• Plugin-aware slash command detection
• Only shows /popular, /read if supporting plugins are active
• Improved settings validation and injection prevention

= 1.6.1 – May 28, 2025 =

• Added Search Analytics panel (Analytics tab in settings)
• Log keyword search queries (term, result count, time, source, user ID)
• Stored via transient-based chunk system
• Exportable to CSV
• Improved tracking logic
• Ignores empty and slash-only queries
• Excludes structural commands like /recent, /fav
• Renamed tracking file: analytics.php → tracking.php
• Better nonce protection and UX polish

= 1.6 – May 27, 2025 =

• Added frontend UI presets:
• style-full.css: fullscreen overlay
• style-topbar.css: fixed top bar (like Spotlight)
• Theme override support: use init-live-search/style.css in theme
• Option to disable plugin CSS entirely
• Internal CSS loader refactor

= 1.5.4 – May 27, 2025 =

• Added SEO metadata search support (no AI)
• Search within SEO Title and Meta Description
• Compatible with Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework
• New filters for developer control:
• init_plugin_suite_live_search_seo_meta_keys
• init_plugin_suite_live_search_weights

= 1.5.3 – May 27, 2025 =

• ACF search field support (define keys in admin)
• Multilingual enhancements
• Supports Polylang, WPML
• Language-aware filters and queries
• New developer filters:
• init_plugin_suite_live_search_filter_lang
• init_plugin_suite_live_search_category_taxonomy
• Performance: improved ACF join + status filtering

= 1.5.2 – May 26, 2025 =

• New search mode: Init Smart Tag-Aware Search
• Combines title and tag matches
• Auto bi-gram fallback for short terms
• Tooltip Quick Search now works on single-word selections

= 1.5.1 – May 26, 2025 =

• Added WooCommerce slash commands:
• /product, /on-sale, /stock, /sku, /price
• Display product data: price, sale badge, stock, add-to-cart
• Visual indicators: “Sale”, “Sold Out”
• Infinite scroll and smart SKU/price filtering
• Enhanced keyboard nav in result list

= 1.5 – May 25, 2025 =

• Quick Search tooltip (2–8 words selection)
• Support for data-ils attribute to trigger modal
• Favorite management via /fav, /fav_clear commands
• Toggle favorite from results list
• Unified modal trigger logic
• Optimized state handling

= 1.4.3 – May 24, 2025 =

• Lazy modal init (only creates DOM on trigger)
• New JS events:
• ils:modal-opened, ils:modal-closed, ils:search-started, ils:results-loaded
• Improved keyboard nav and accessibility
• Scroll logic optimized for large result sets

= 1.4.2 – May 24, 2025 =

• Enhanced slash command dropdown (/re...)
• Added ?modal=search&term=... URL trigger
• Option to disable all slash commands
• UI/keyboard refinements

= 1.4.1 – May 23, 2025 =

• Added advanced slash commands:
• /related, /read, /random, /categories, /tags, /help, /clear, /reset
• /read integration with Init Reading Position
• Internal command result caching with localStorage
• Fully internationalized commands
• Refactored JS modules

= 1.4 – May 23, 2025 =

• Introduced full slash command system
• /recent, /popular, /tag, /category, /date, /id
• Smart /date parsing
• REST-powered, cached results
• Modal trigger options: Ctrl + /, triple-click, focus
• Unified query parser

= 1.3 – May 22, 2025 =

• Added modal triggers:
• Ctrl + /, triple-click
• Client-side category filter
• Post type badge in results
• UI: input clear button, dropdown polish
• Refactored codebase, namespacing

= 1.2 – May 20, 2025 =

• Voice input (SpeechRecognition API)
• New settings: fallback toggle, CSS toggle, dark mode
• Developer filters added for full control

= 1.1 – May 18, 2025 =

• Trimmed + bigram fallback logic
• Remembers last search via sessionStorage
• Enforces 100-char input limit
• Caching, UTM, dark/light theme options

= 1.0 – May 17, 2025 =

• First stable release
• Modal-based search via REST API
• Fully keyboard accessible
• Inline fallback + suggestions
• Support for manual and auto-generated keyword suggestions
• Lightweight Vanilla JS, no jQuery