In this episode, we walk through how to automatically populate your search input based on the query string in the URL. This is super handy when you want to link directly to a specific search and have it load up for the user right away, making your search experience more sharable and user-friendly.
We'll first add a search query like ?search=AL
to the URL and check out how, by default, our input isn't picking it up. Then, we introduce the concept of using an initialState
option in our UI, and hard code a value to demonstrate how it works.
To dynamically grab whatever's in the query string, we use JavaScript to fetch the relevant parameter (like search
, q
, or whatever you call it) from the URL. With just a couple of lines, we wire it up so any query in the URL gets pulled into your search input automatically. Finally, we see it in action: the search box populates and displays results for whatever was typed into the link, or just stays empty if nothing was specified. Super simple, but really powerful for sharing searches!