Nikita,
Thank you for the PM.
Your suggestion to look at the search.tpl code was spot-on.
In case anyone is following this in the future:
in search.tpl. the variable that pre-fills the search field (in the xcart templates) is:
Code:
{$search_prefilled.substring|default:$lng.lbl_enter_keyword|escape}
In my 3rd party template, this string
was:
Code:
{$search_prefilled.substring|escape}
And obviously, that was not going to pre-populate the default <lbl_enter_keyword>
This is really meant for another thread, but...
Since CloudSearch started life as an "add-on" module, then later integrated into x-cart core, it is possible that the template in a new 3rd party skin does not have CloudSearch integrated. I have advised the developer of my template. But it was as simple as doing a compare on search.tpl
Problem solved. Thank you!