replace link in search results with custom column

Question

I would like to edit how the search results render. The default behaviour is to start with a link to the document (or the dispform.aspx of a list item). I was able to change the url value for specific types of documents.

What I now want to do is to replace the title of the result link to not be taken from the "title" or "name" field, but from a custom column I have.

I have already added the column to be crawled and also added it in the fetched properties of the web part.

Now I have to edit the xslt, but I have very little understanding of the language and can't find where the 'title' of the link is stored.

I am using search server express and sharepoint foundation. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I know it's been a long time, but I found answer to my question using this simple technique posted for a different question.

I just needed to replace from the default xsl these lines:

  <xsl:otherwise>
    <a id="{concat($currentId,'_Title')}">
      <xsl:attribute name="href">
        <xsl:value-of  select="$url"/>
      </xsl:attribute>
      <xsl:attribute name="title">
        <xsl:value-of select="title"/>
      </xsl:attribute>
    <xsl:choose>
     <xsl:when test="hithighlightedproperties/HHTitle[. != '']">
      <xsl:call-template name="HitHighlighting">
       <xsl:with-param name="hh" select="hithighlightedproperties/HHTitle" /> 
      </xsl:call-template>   
     </xsl:when>
     <xsl:otherwise><xsl:value-of select="title"/></xsl:otherwise> 
    </xsl:choose>
    </a>
  </xsl:otherwise>

with this:

  <a href="{$url}" id="{concat('CSR_',$id)}" title="{$url}" target="_blank">
   <xsl:value-of select="xxxxx"/>
  </a>

Where xxxxx is the managed property (in my case 'displayname'). Now the titles of the search results don't get highlighted, but everything else works OK.