This plugin adds Spotlight ™ like live search with an ajax popup to 
the default search box. See the screenshot.
It can be used as a widget or directly as a PHP call in the theme.
The Live Search Plugin is heavily based on John Nunemaker’s 
<a href="http://www.wp-plugins-db.org/plugin/addicted-to-live-search/" rel="nofollow ugc">Addicted To Live Search</a>.
<h4>Changelog</h4>
<ul>
<li>1.4.7 Fix by Tony for “With mouseover on result in IE, there is no background image or color”.</li>
<li>1.4.6 Added livesearchpopup_resultsbox(width) to put the popup below a search box of your choice, e.g. from a theme.</li>
<li>1.4.5 Do not initialize if no livesearchpopup_results is found. In contrast to the original live search this plugin does not make sense without the popup anyway. This fixes a JavaScript bug in IE7.</li>
<li>1.4.4 Use wpurl instead of siteurl to allow installations of WordPress at different addresses (thanks to Draco)</li>
<li>1.4.3 Use <?php instead of <? in live-search-popup.php</li>
<li>1.4.2 Force update script to update the plugin.</li>
<li>1.4.1 Switched to the_post instead of the deprecated wp_start().</li>
<li>1.4 Finally permalinks work together with this plugin. In addition a “Show all” links was added at the bottom for the case that there are more posts than shown in the popup (thanks to Marco Luthe).</li>
<li>1.3.4 Moved the placeholder and autocomplete attributes of the search box to JavaScript as they are not XHTML valid (thanks to Marco Luthe)</li>
<li>1.3.3 Added some print commands in front of get_bloginfos (thanks to upekshapriya who noticed that)</li>
<li>1.3.2 Force update script to update the plugin.</li>
<li>1.3.1 Relative paths in css to allow installation which are not at the domain root.</li>
<li>1.3 Fixed behaviour for change and blur events of the search box. This fixes the “click-through” bug.</li>
<li>1.2.1 Updated to reflect that it works with 2.3 as well.</li>
<li>1.2 Bugfixes</li>
<li>1.1 Bugfixes</li>
<li>1.0 First release</li>
</ul>

Live Search Popup

Spotlight (tm) like live search with an ajax popup

itthinx

Kento

Search Live supplies effective integrated live search facilities and advanced search features.
This plugins delivers a smooth interactive experience with immediate results for your site’s visitors, making it easier and more efficient to find the right results.
It provides instant live search results with thumbnails where matches are found for one or multiple search keywords in titles, excerpts or content, allows to enhance the standard search form with this functionality, provides a flexible shortcode <code>[search_live]</code> that can be placed anywhere to provide an interactive search form and a widget for use in sidebars.
The shortcode and widget can be fine-tuned with sensible options to improve the search experience for your visitors.
<ul>
<li>Instant search results replace the standard WordPress search form. This is enabled by default but you can turn it off.</li>
<li>You can use the shortcode <code>[search_live]</code> to place a search form anywhere.</li>
<li>You can use the Search Live widget in your sidebars.</li>
<li>Supports Custom Post Types.</li>
<li>Full multilanguage support and compatible with <a href="https://wpml.org/plugin/search-live/" rel="nofollow ugc">WPML</a>.</li>
</ul>
Search Live can show instant search results including thumbnails and short descriptions or manual excerpts.
Among other useful options, you can determine the number of results shown and whether to search in any combination of titles, excerpts or contents. These can be determined individually for each instance of Search Live’s shortcode or widget.
Search Live supplies results from posts, pages and other public post types.
Search Live fully supports multilanguage sites with <a href="https://wpml.org" rel="nofollow ugc">WPML</a>.
We are working on an extended version that will provide enhanced features. If you would support our work using a premium version, we would love to hear from you. Please share your enthusiasm by leaving a comment on the <a href="https://www.itthinx.com/plugins/search-live/" rel="nofollow ugc">Search Live</a> page, follow <a href="https://twitter.com/wpsearchlive" rel="nofollow ugc">@wpsearchlive</a> and browse our <a href="https://www.itthinx.com/shop/" rel="nofollow ugc">Shop</a>.
<h3>Feedback</h3>
Feedback is welcome!
If you need help, have problems, want to leave feedback or want to provide constructive criticism, please do so here at the <a href="https://www.itthinx.com/plugins/search-live/" rel="nofollow ugc">Search Live</a> plugin page.
Please try to solve problems there before you rate this plugin or say it doesn’t work. There goes a lot of work into providing you with quality plugins!
Please help with your feedback and we’re also grateful if you help spread the word about this plugin.
Thanks!
<h4>Twitter</h4>
Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/wpsearchlive" rel="nofollow ugc">@wpsearchlive</a> for updates on this plugin. 
Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/itthinx" rel="nofollow ugc">@itthinx</a> on Twitter for updates on this and other plugins.
<h3>Translations</h3>
Brazilian Portuguese translation by <a href="http://henriquevianna.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Henrique Avila Vianna</a>.
Many thanks for your help!
If you would like to have your translation added, please <a href="https://www.itthinx.com/contact/" rel="nofollow ugc">contact</a> us.

Search Live

Search Live supplies integrated live search facilities and advanced search features.

Live Search Popup vs Search Live