Setting the list grid as default when products are displayed using the search bar

Question

How to set the list grid to be the default preview when product/products are displayed using the search bar?

Answer 1

<catalog_category_layered>
 <reference name="product_list_toolbar">
  <action method="setData">
   <key>_current_grid_mode</key>
   <value>grid</value>
  </action>
 </reference>
</catalog_category_layered>

Answer 2

1. Making catalogsearch use it's own template

Duplicate list.phtml like for example, listsearch.phtml.

Then you can either completely remove the list mode section if you don't want customers to be able to switch between modes or modify it to set the default...

Within listsearch.phtml, at the top of the page (just above <div class="category-products">), specify the default mode with:-

$this->getChild('toolbar')->setCurrentMode('grid');

Then make the catalog search use this new template file:-

<block type="catalogsearch/result" name="search.result" template="catalogsearch/result.phtml">
    <block type="catalog/product_list" name="search_result_list" template="catalog/product/listsearch.phtml">
        <!-- etc etc -->
    </block>
</block>

2. Declaring the default mode via XML

In your local.xml, specify the config values for the product_list_toolbar like:-

<catalogsearch_result_index translate="label">
    <reference name="product_list_toolbar">
        <action method="setData">
            <key>_current_grid_mode</key>
            <value>grid</value>
        </action>
    </reference>
</catalogsearch_result_index>

Either of these methods should work depending on the extend of how much you wish to customise the product listings in the catalog search results differently from the main catalog.