>Personally on my site, I turned OFF the AJAX search because I like the longer search box in the header bar versus the small magnifying glass.

Likewise, everything has to be blindingly obvious for the densest customer. I don't like the modal but want an ajax search.

I made a half-hearted attempt to modify the BS4 code to use the default search field, but gave up and used the instant search instead:

https://github.com/marco-pm/zencart_instantsearch