Just a quick question - please no browser wars or any of that:

In Firefox, is there an extension available or anything so that you can, for instance, just type "g spiderman" to search google for "spiderman" - or "e laptop" to search ebay for "laptop"?

I currently use Opera and am in the habit of doing this and was hoping I wouldn't have to break the habit if I moved to firefox. I know you can just use a "googlebar", but I'd rather use it as opera has it.

Thanks!

it is built in. right-click on the search field and select add a keyword to this search, then save it in your bookmarks.

there are a few searches in the default bookmarks. you can change the keyword if you'd like.

oh excellent. Thanks grasshopper!

He's correct, but I'm going to walk you through it.

1. Goto www.google.com
2. Right click on the search area (where you would type in a word to search for)
3. After you right click a menu will come up with the words "add a keyword for this search".



4. After you click on "add a keyword for this search" this box will come up.



5 You enter the info you want, the important part here is the Keyword. Cause it's going to be what you type in address bar to make it work each time. Like you wanted G



So as you can see in the keyword I put G the rest is whatever you want.

6. Now restart the browser and type in G (a space) and the word to search for in the address bar. Like G Neowin



I know you probably didn't need it put this simply, but others might. Hope this helps someone.

nice walkthrough there dogg...

so we can do that to any search fields? as long as we add a keyword for that site's search field? cool!

Wow. I've been using Firefox for a long time and I had no idea this feature existed. Awesome!

You know, every product is designed to minimize user fustration and to maximize it's user-friendliness. If you feel that the current design of the "keyword" feature is too hard to understand or is worded badly and therefore causing confusion for you, you can file an enhancement request at bugzilla and ask them to change it to a word which you feel is more suitable.

i've had trouble with some search fields... like with stock image sites. if you have trouble with one, and you can figure out the url that contains your search terms, you can bookmark it and replace the search terms in the url with %s and add a keyword to it. that is way too complicated, i know.

short answer: most of em.

how do you explain Netscape then?

Thanks intoksicated,

Not sure about any, but I know it works on a lot.. like ebay,amazon,search.com, Dogpile and I'm sure plenty of others.

Tested on Neowin search.. the keyword search box didn't come up.. so I guess it doesn't work on that kind of searches.

I got it, but nice walkthru - thanks! It's a great feature.

It's not that it's too complicated of a feature, but it's just something that you normally wouldn't come across unless you were specifically looking for it.

if it's for common sites like google, ebay, amazon... why not just use the search bar? u can add more engines thru here... http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html

it's just what I'm used to from using Opera for so long. I'm so used to just clicking in the url bar now and typing "g blahblah" for a search. Old habits die hard.

well, google uses a get while neowin uses a post, firefox might not be able to run keyword searches against documents that use a post.

Been messing around with FireFox a bit, and have a part two question:

Is it possible to change shortcuts? ie. Instead of alt+click to open new tabs and ctrl+enter to open new tabs from url bar, use shift+click/enter for both? (Maybe through a user.js hack?)

If it's not possible, that's fine. I just think this is the only thing left still bugging me.

Thanks!

You can, but i think it involves editing the .xul files that make up the ui, but, see if a extension already exists, if it doesnt, request somebody to make one, it sounds usefull so it might get somebody to make it.

Keyconfig

nice extension icedogg, but it doesn't handle what I was looking for (opening new tabs). I'll try requesting it to the author of that extension. Thanks!

well, essentially, if you know the names of the text fields, sometimes you can pass the variables through using get...but i guess that would be complicated for the normal user, but for web savvy ppl on the other hand