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I am new to SharePoint. I am trying to add a search box to a list but I can't figure out how to do it. I have added an external content type and want to be able to search in it.
So what I did was adding the WebPart: Search Box. But how to I tell the search box where to search? I thought maybe I had to set the connection but the connection menu is grayed out and telling:
"The WebPart you are connecting from does not allow authoring of connections."
I am using SharePoint 2010
I don't believe you can use just the search webpart to query external content types.
Assuming you have the content type correctly configured using BCS then you can set up a simple search site to test using the Basic Search Center template.
In essence you use SharePoint Designer 2010 to define the external content type and set up a SharePoint Server search crawl that includes that external data.
You will need to configure a Read List and Read Item operation for the external content type.
Reference and steps here.
Based on what you are describing. I would create a custom search scope. Launch a full crawl. Then configure your search box WebPart to use the custom scope.
