A few people asked for this hack and i had a few mins. left:
Its about the same principle as the Authentication Mod.
You’ll loose the (always visible) search-input and get it back only when
clicked on a new search button, like this:
[ATTACH]254[/ATTACH]
Click the button to toggle visibility of the quick-search-box.
Again, its a quick & dirty one, tested in the lite_orange-skin
and only in version 1.3.4. Help each other out to get some dots on
the i in your case concerning layout and stuff…
4 very easy/fast steps:
[COLOR=“Red”]STEP 1:
-----------------------------------------------------------------[/COLOR]
Open file [COLOR=“red”]skins//customer/top_menu.tpl[/COLOR]
[COLOR=“seagreen”]a.[/COLOR]Add (thus insert) beneath the 1st line:
```php
{include file=“side_boxes/search.tpl”}
```
[COLOR=“SeaGreen”]b.[/COLOR]Around line 18 there’s a [COLOR=“Blue”]colspan=“16”[/COLOR] or something. increase the 16 with 2
so it reads [COLOR=“blue”]
[COLOR=“SeaGreen”]c.[/COLOR]
Add this code where you want the button. If you look closely you can see
it fits anywhere in there to your needs. Paste this code inbetween 2 buttons:
```php
{assign var=“active” value=“”}
{assign var=“on_click” value=“”}
{include file=“buttons/top_menu_button.tpl” but_content=“
$lang.search”}```
[COLOR=“Red”]STEP 2:
-----------------------------------------------------------------[/COLOR]
Open file [COLOR=“red”]skins//customer/top.tpl[/COLOR]
Around line 17 or so you can read:
{include file="side_boxes/search.tpl"}
replace this with
[COLOR=“Red”]STEP 3:
-----------------------------------------------------------------[/COLOR]
Open file [COLOR=“red”]skins//customer/styles.css[/COLOR]
Add at the [COLOR=“blue”]bottom[/COLOR]
.quicksearch_box {
position: absolute;
left:440px;
border:1px solid #cccccc;
background-color:#eaeaea;
top:63px;
width:200px;
height:75px;
z-index:10001;
}
[COLOR=“Red”]STEP 4:
-----------------------------------------------------------------[/COLOR]
Open file [COLOR=“red”]skins//customer/side_boxes/search.tpl[/COLOR]
Somewhere at the bottom you see:
Hi nwsco
ADD BEFORE THIS LINE
Adjust all styles (top. left etc) that you made in step 3 to your own likes (higher, lower, bordercolor, etc…)
Again, this was quick&dirty, so corrections below please 
Nice one, THX