Steven Zahm@ Kasper
To search in a different category, you first have to switch to it using the category drop down when using the category shortcode option. This is because you have effectively limited the “All Categories” by setting the manual override (the category shortcode option). If you did not have that category shortcode option, then the entire directory would be searched when there is no category selected in the drop down. This works pretty much exactly like when you search at Amazon you can either choose to search the entire store or limit the search to “department” (another word for category). However, the main difference is you’ve manually limited the initial results to your “default category” by using the category shortcode option.
Ok, I said the same thing in a couple different ways so I hope that makes sense!
Now, with this all said, there is something else that I forgot about that would allow you to override the category shortcode option when a search is performed. I just added a QuickTip about it discussing it in detail.
You can try this out. Like I said in the QuickTip, this has not been thoroughly tested nor is it supported, but other are using it to their satisfaction. I hope it helps you too!