Firefox is my browser of choice for surfing and developing web sites. The open-source nature of Firefox enables it to have a huge community support. Besides the countless add-ons, one of my favorite features of the browser is its quick search ability.
Quick search in a nutshell, allows you to turn a typical routined web search process into a command line shortcut. For example, instead of going to wikipedia.com to enter the search terms there, you can use “w mySearchTerm” from Firefox’s address bar.
To set up a quick search, simply go to the site first. In my example, I’ll use Wikipedia.com.
Right click on the search input field, choose “Add a keyword for this search.”
On the next step, give your search a meaningful name. You can use whatever for the keyword. I use “w” for Wikipedia. This will become the shortcut “command.” I recommend putting all your quick searches in a folder. In my case, I name the folder “Quick Searches.”
That’s it. If you look at the property of the quick search bookmark you just saved:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=%s
“%s” will be the parameter used for the search. To use the quick search, simply to go the address bar of Firefox, and type “w yourSearchTerm.” I have shortcuts set up for search based sites I frequent.
Note the “Add a keyword for this search” option is only available when you right click on text input field. It does not appear for textarea. If you want to set up a quicksearch for a site that uses textarea there are couple ways to do this. First being looking at the form action string, and manually add that to a quicksearch bookmark.
I prefer the second way, by rewriting page’s HTML using Firebug. Take Google’s translate page for example, the default search input is a <textarea>.
By using Firebug’s HTML editor, you can modify the code on the client side. I changed <textarea> to a <input type=”text” />. This then enables the menu to have the option to add quick searches.
You can also use multiple parameters for quicksearch, but it involves some javascript. Lifehacker has an excellent tutorial on this topic.
Comments 6
05-14-09
Hmmm…I used Firebug before, and it took me a loooooooong time to figure out that there was a memory leak in it. My browsers would slow to a crawl, and I’d keep closing and opening them all again. Love the concept, hate the execution.
05-14-09
Great article! I’ve known about keywords to quickly navigate to a site, but I didn’t know about the keyword search option. This will save me a ton of time when I can’t stand waiting to find out what is happening in the episode of Battlestar Galactica (i’m on season 3) so I search for it on wikipedia.
05-14-09
I use this feature all the time, and Firefox used to include a “Quick Searches” folder in the Bookmarks by default (although I’m not sure when it stopped being included). So, I got used to adding my own folder manually, along with my indispensable searches.
Today, when I found a post at Lifehacker that explains that you can add keywords to search providers included in the Search toolbar (FF3):
click on the down arrow next to, say, the Google icon on the search toolbar
Select “Manage Search Engines”
Add the keyword (but it will prompt you if a keyword is already in use by a bookmark)
profit!
But of course, the search provider has to exist in that list in order to get a keyword.
05-14-09
@Jeff, I hear ya on that one. That’s my only complaint about FF. FF3′s memory leak problem is less severe, but it’s still there. Also the performance can be affected by various add-ons too. I notice when I disable Firebug/YSlow, FF is faster.
@Kris, I’m glad you found this helpful. I need to catch up on BSG..
@David, thanks for showing me all the cool tricks! (Dave ‘n I work together)
05-17-09
Good tips – you develop on a windows pc really? you seem like a mac guy
05-17-09
It seems most designers are on a mac. I use whatever that does the job. I’ve been on a PC since early days. Also, I can’t afford a mac now :)