Developer builds access-aware WordPress search modal that hides gated content from guests
A developer has shared a detailed walkthrough of building a live search feature for a fitness membership site running WordPress, WooCommerce, LearnDash, and WishList Member. The key challenge was preventing default WordPress search from exposing titles and excerpts of member-only content to logged-out visitors. The solution uses a single custom REST API endpoint with access-aware filtering enforced at query time, ensuring gated content never appears in results for unauthorized users. The UI was implemented as an icon-triggered full-screen modal with debounced live results grouped by content type, chosen to avoid cluttering an already dense navigation bar. The backend integrates Relevanssi for relevance-ranked search while gracefully falling back to core WordPress search if the plugin is unavailable, following a "degrade, don't die" reliability principle.
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