You can define a submit control that invokes the SearchFormHandler’s handleSearch() method, in one of the following ways:

<dsp:input type="submit" [value="label"] bean="searchform-handler.search"/>

<dsp:input type="image" {page|src}=path bean="searchform-handler.search"/>

The search operation also stores search results in the handler’s searchResultsByItem property and makes them available to the searchResults property for the duration of the component’s scope (the current session).