[Lynne]

Your code is a bit different from mine. This is from my SHOWTHREAD template. This is the part you see in the top bar - it's just basic javascript to create the dropdown (in the same manner dropdowns are made in the navbar):

    <if condition="$show['search']">
        <td class="vbmenu_control" id="threadsearch" nowrap="nowrap">
            <a href="$show[nojs_link]#goto_threadsearch">$vbphrase[search_this_thread]</a>
            <if condition="$show['popups']"><script type="text/javascript"> vbmenu_register("threadsearch"); </script></if>
        </td>
    </if>

Then, near the bottom of the template is the drop down part with the form:

<if condition="$show['search']">
<!-- thread search menu -->
<div class="vbmenu_popup" id="threadsearch_menu" style="display:none">
<form action="search.php?do=process&amp;searchthreadid=$threadid" method="post">
    <table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0">
    <tr>
        <td class="thead">$vbphrase[search_this_thread]<a name="goto_threadsearch"></a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
            <input type="hidden" name="s" value="$session[sessionhash]" />
            <input type="hidden" name="securitytoken" value="$bbuserinfo[securitytoken]" />
            <input type="hidden" name="do" value="process" />
            <input type="hidden" name="searchthreadid" value="$threadid" />
            <input type="text" class="bginput" name="query" size="25" />$gobutton<br />
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="search.php?$session[sessionurl]searchthreadid=$threadid">$vbphrase[advanced_search]</a></td>
    </tr>
    </table>
</form>
</div>
<!-- / thread search menu -->
</if>

If you don't want the dropdown, then you can just use the form in the second code portion. You'll have to format it how you want. It looks like it doesn't have a form id you need to change, but you can't leave that div id the same - threadsearch_menu. Of course, get rid of the display:none stuff, but when you reformat it, I'm sure you will. You'll have to just play with it, I'd guess.