quicksearches in firefox

i’d heard of quicksearches before, but in all honesty didn’t know why they were cool. basically they’re bookmarks that can be used as keyword searches in the address bar.

example:
if i created a quicksearch for google i would need to create it using the following properties:

• name: google quicksearch
• url: http://ww.google.co.uk/search?q=%s
• keyword: google

now the if i typed in “google booyaa” it would turn the above url into http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=booyaa.

neat eh?

i’ve already got a search for ibm/lotus technotes by number. right click on this link here to add to your own bookmarks. you’ll need to change the properties (specifically the keyword) of the bookmark as so:

a little bit fiddly i know, but if you search a lot of sites it can be quicker to set up a few of these quicksearches.

another useful thing to know is that if the site you visit a lot has a search box on the page you may able to right click on the search box and add it as a keyword.

these quicksearches can also be done in internet explorer using tweakui (or if you’re feeling brave regedit). if i start to gather a large collection of quicksearches i may provide an export of them. watch this space!
sources:

• http://www.noscope.com/journal/2004/06/search
• http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/smart-keywords.html

see also:

• http://www.yubnub.org/
  
• yubnub search engine plugin

[tags]firefox, search[/tags]