I am trying to develop a custom component that will search on any field on an object, and I would like to do it without using any java code. I am really close. I've used a VF popup based on code from TehNrd and managed to get the component controller and the VF page controller talking to each other. The issue I am having is with the selectoption on the popup. It is being populated with a string array passed into the custom component. When I do the AssignTo="{!myList}" in the attribute, the go button and the close button on the popup work fine. When I do the assignto, they don't work. Any thoughts?

Custom Component

<apex:component controller="searchcomponentcontroller" >
  <apex:attribute name="pageController" 
      type="PageControllerBase" 
      assignTo="{!pageController}" 
      required="true" 
      description="The controller for the page." />
<apex:attribute description="" name="label" type="String" required="true"/>
<apex:attribute description="" name="Searchby" type="String[]" required="true" AssignTo="{!myList}"  />

<apex:outputlabel for="intxt" value="{!label}"/>
<apex:inputtext id="intxt" value="{!initValue}"/>
<img id="imglead" src="/s.gif"
class="lookupIcon" onblur="this.className = 'lookupIcon';" onfocus="this.className = 'lookupIconOn';" 
onmouseout="this.className = 'lookupIcon';this.className = 'lookupIcon';" 
onmouseover="this.className = 'lookupIconOn';this.className = 'lookupIconOn';" onClick="showPopup()"></img>
<apex:actionfunction name="showPopup" action="{!showpopup}" rerender="popup"/>

<apex:outputPanel id="popup">
<apex:outputPanel styleClass="customPopup" layout="block" rendered="{!displayPopUp}">           
<div align="Right"><apex:commandButton value="X" action="{!closepopup}" rerender="popup"/></div>
<apex:sectionHeader title="Lookup" /><br/>
<apex:outputPanel id="searchmaterial" layout="block" rendered="true">
                <apex:outputLabel value="Search: " for="txtsearch" StyleClass="labelCol"/>
                <apex:inputText value="{!searchtext}" id="txtsearch"/>
                <apex:outputlabel for="Options" Value=" by: "/>
                <apex:selectList id="Options" value="{!selectedOption}" size="1" >
                    <apex:selectOptions value="{!Options}" />
                </apex:selectList>
<apex:Commandbutton Value="Go" action="{!updateValue}" />
<div style="overflow:auto; width:?px; height:?px"><br/>
</div>               
</apex:outputPanel>
</apex:outputPanel>
</apex:outputPanel>
  
     <style type="text/css">
       .customPopup{
            background-color: white;
            border-style: solid;
            border-width: 2px;
            left: 50%;
            padding:10px;
            position: absolute;
            z-index: 9999;
            /* These are the 3 css properties you will need to tweak so the pop 
            up displays in the center of the screen. First set the width. Then set 
            margin-left to negative half of what the width is. You can also add 
            the height property for a fixed size pop up.*/
            width: 800px;
            height: 400px;
            margin-left: -400px;
            top:100px;
        }
    </style>
</apex:component>

Custom Component Controller

public with sharing class searchcomponentcontroller extends componentcontrollerbase{  

  public String myValue = '';
  public string[] OptionList;
  public List<SelectOption> Options;
  boolean displaypopup;
  public void selectedoption{get; set;}
  public String searchtext{get;set;}
    
  public String getInitValue() {return myValue; }
  public void setInitValue(String s){myValue = s;}
  
  public void updateValue() {myvalue = searchtext; }
  
  public void setdisplaypopup(boolean b){displaypopup = true;}
  public Boolean getdisplaypopup(){return displaypopup;}
  public void showpopup(){displaypopup = true;}
  public void closepopup(){displaypopup = false;}

  public List<SelectOption> getOptions(){return Options;}
  
  public void setmyList(String[] sa){
  OptionList = sa;  
  Options = new List<SelectOption>();
  for(integer i=0; i<sa.size(); i++){
  Options.add(New SelectOption(sa[i],sa[i]));}
  }

  public String[] getmyList(){ return OptionList;}
 
}

VF Page

<apex:page controller="MattTestController" >
<apex:form >
<c:CustomSearch pageController="{!this}" Searchby="{!filterlist}" label="My Label: "/>
</apex:form>
</apex:page>

Page Controller

public with sharing class MattTestController extends pagecontrollerbase {

  public searchcomponentcontroller myComponentController { get; set; }
    
  public override void setComponentController(ComponentControllerBase compController) {
    myComponentController = (searchcomponentcontroller)compController;
  }
    
  public override ComponentControllerBase getMyComponentController() {
    return myComponentController;
  }
  
  public String[] getfilterlist(){
      String[] s = new String[]{'This','That'};
      return s;      
  }
}

PageControllerBase

public with sharing virtual class PageControllerBase {
    
  private ComponentControllerBase myComponentController;
    
  public virtual ComponentControllerBase getMyComponentController() {
    return myComponentController;
  }

  public virtual void setComponentController(ComponentControllerBase compController) {
    myComponentController = compController;
  }
    
  public PageControllerBase getThis() {
    return this;
  }
    
}

ComponentControllerBase

public with sharing virtual class ComponentControllerBase {
  public PageControllerBase pageController { get; 
    set {
      if (value != null) {
    pageController = value;
    pageController.setComponentController(this);
      }
    }
  }
}