rewrite PI search functionality

[simonLeary42]

before:

• submit button is always enabled even if the search query has no match
• every keypress results in a large number of LDAP queries
• pi_search.php is located under modal/ despite that it is only used with ajax
• pi_search.php returns HTML
• user can search by PI group GID and PI group owner name
• PI group owner email can be used instead of the PI group GID in HTTP POST

after:

• submit button is only enabled if the search query has an exact match
• LDAP queries are cached in the PHP session until next page load
• pi_search.php is located under ajax/ where it belongs
• pi_search.php returns JSON
• user can search by PI group GID, PI group owner name, and PI group owner email
• only the PI group GID can be used in HTTP POST

Screen.Recording.2026-01-16.at.8.30.51.AM.mov

in the rare scenario where the user's session gets automatically cleaned up by php:

I also implemented this in a simpler way where all the PI owner attributes are stored in the browser, but I decided that wasn't a good idea. #535

Future work:

• remove UnityLdap->getAllPIGroups(), update group_user_request_owner_reminder.php to manually parse attributes

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR refactors the PI search functionality to improve performance by caching PI group data in $_SESSION and relocating the search endpoint from modal/ to ajax/. The submit button now only enables when an exact PI group match is found.

Changes:

• Moved pi_search.php from modal/ to ajax/ directory
• Implemented session-based caching of PI group owner information
• Enhanced submit button behavior to only enable on exact matches

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

File	Description
webroot/panel/modal/pi_search.php	Removed old implementation that performed LDAP queries on every keystroke
webroot/panel/modal/new_pi.php	Added session cache initialization and improved JavaScript for exact match validation
webroot/panel/ajax/pi_search.php	New implementation using session cache instead of direct LDAP queries

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 7 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

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[simonLeary42]

#511