Problem with placeholder value and searching on categories (ignoring keywords) - SuperSearch

Question

I need the user to be able to search against two category groups: one for states, and the other for job type, i.e., accounting, HR, etc.

Two problems:

First, I try to use a placeholder value for my fields:

<select name="category[]">
<option val="">Select Category</option>
{exp:channel:categories channel="jobs" 
category_group="5" disable="category_fields"
style="linear"}
    {exp:super_search:variables}
        <option val="{category_url_title}">{category_name}</option>
    {/exp:super_search:variables}
{/exp:channel:categories}

(This is one of them.) The blank value ends up passing 'Select+Category' in to the URL.

Secondly, I need to ignore the keywords field altogether. I tried adding a hidden field:

<input type="hidden" name="keywords" value="">

But that doesn't matter.

My search results page is yielding incorrect results because it thinks the keywords value is "", which is like "any".

Try submitting the form: http://usesi.savagedevserver.com/jobs

Answer 1

For the first issue try changing <option val="">Select Category</option> to <option>Select Category</option>... specifically removing the val="".

---

I took a look at the Solspace Supersearch docs and I don't see that keyword is required. So try taking it out.

Answer 2

Now that you have the search form looking better, try looking at your search results tag. Specifically,

category[] This field allows users to search on categories. Default behaviour is searching on category names. To switch this to category ID or URL titles, use the category_indicator parameter in the Results tag

Do you have the category_indicator parameter setup on your results tag?