I have configured a Lightning Community using the Build Your Own template. I wish to add a global search box like the ones in the headers of most of the built in templates, to allow my users to search for CMS content. This documentation implies that I should be able to use the Global Search Box component, however, it's not available for me to drag into the builder. Does it need to be activated or enabled?
[SalesForce] Global Search Bar component not available in Build Your Own community template
Related Solutions
You can add CSS frameworks to the template by editing the HTML Head Markup of the template in the community builder. Shown below.
Go to Community Builder -> Settings -> Advanced -> Edit Head Markup
Once You Click the Edit Head Markup Button, you will get a popup like shown in the image below where you can add CSS frameworks and other libraries just like you do in HTML.
NOTE:
Doing the above will add the CSS framework to each and every page of your community which might effect the standard CSS of the template. If you don't want that to happen, you can use lightning components with its <ltng:require> attribute. Something Like Below
<aura:component implements="forceCommunity:availableForAllPageTypes" access="global">
<ltng:require
styles="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css"
scripts='https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.6/js/bootstrap.min.js,
https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.12.0/jquery.min.js'/>
<button type="button" class="btn btn-success">Success</button>
</aura:component>
I hope this helps :)
I'd question your underlying premise, Lightning isn't going to be any faster than VF+tabs, especially if those VF/tabs are using a third party library like Angular + Remote Actions to do their UI work.
At its core Lightning is another Single Page Application framework, its not magic and its not going to work any better with a custom built front end than a well regarded third party framework. Indeed you might actually suffer more given the maturity of the framework.
If you convert to Napali and go with a Lightning Community Template then you are going to get the benefits of having your components integrated with the Community Builder tool, but without that I'd give it a miss for production use.
Best Answer
So as it appears that you would need a custom one to place in here. Else it will use the default search component. You can try, if you're not seeing anything search related on your page, to update the settings to show all components but it also notes that some may not function well depending on page types.