jeremypreed

Improved Search is a AJAX search interface you can place anywhere on your WordPress site and get instant search results as soon as you beginning typing. Improved Search delivers the most relevant results first. It also separates results by post type to help you quickly identify the post you are trying to find. Improved search allows you to customize the experience to fit the needs of your WordPress site. Improved Search comes with a shortcode as well as a widget for you to control its location.

Improved Quick Search

Improved Search is a AJAX search interface you can place anywhere on your site and get instant search results as soon as you beginning typing.

nchankov

This plugin adding autocomplete functionality to search input field. It is using core jQuery library as well as 
autocomplete jquery plugin from http://www.pengoworks.com/workshop/jquery/autocomplete.htm
This plugin requires zero configuration, but since version 1.2.0 there is admin screen where you can enable the extra ‘number of matches’ next to each option and other goodies. 
You just need to activate and it’s ready to be used in the blog. The plugin is tested with WordPress 2.6.5, but until there aren’t big core changes, it sould work for all future releases. I don’t have 
information if this plugin will work with older versions of WordPress, but for sure it is working with 2.6.x. The last version 1.2.0 is tested on WP 2.7.1.
New in 1.3.5: When it’s selected to display posts and/or pages and the autosubmit is ON, then when the user clicks on the selected row it will go directly to the post or page url. This way user are skipping one step. The change affect only pages and posts. Categories and tags behave as now.
New in 1.3.0: Added result type option in admin. From now on you can choose which type of results will be displayed.
New in 1.2: This version could display number of matches found in the blog.
New in 1.2.1: Small fix for table prefixes and adding autosubmit once the item from the list is selected.
I would appreciate if you write an review/post in your blog with a link to my page: <a href="http://nik.chankov.net" rel="nofollow ugc">nik.chankov.net</a>. 
Thanks!
<h3>Thanks to</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://nik.chankov.net" rel="nofollow ugc">My Self 🙂</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jquery.com" rel="nofollow ugc">jquery.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.pengoworks.com/workshop/jquery/autocomplete.htm" rel="nofollow ugc">jQuery Autocomplete Plugin</a></li>
<li><a href="http://csixty4.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Dave Ross</a> for the hint with name selector 🙂</li>
</ul>

Autocompleter

Adding autocomplete functionality to the blog search input field. The values provided are the tags and categories used in the blog.

Improved Quick Search vs Autocompleter