OpenSearch

[-Hiroshi-]

Recently stumbled across an article detailing Windows 7's OpenSearch technology, which basically adds search capabilities into explorer.

Article

Decided to cook one up for Neowin, with this little .osdx file you'll be able to search Neowin's forums from within Explorer. :)

Download - 1KB

Blog post with additional OpenSearch providers.

Edited January 4, 2009 by -Hiroshi-

[Calum Veteran]

Again, another feature not many people know about and certain people disregard when saying Windows 7 should be a service pack to Windows Vista :rolleyes:

Thanks for notifying everyone of this -Hiroshi- :) I remember this from one of Long Zheng's blog posts where he incorporated Flikr into Windows Explorer - very nice! :)

[-Hiroshi-]

Again, another feature not many people know about and certain people disregard when saying Windows 7 should be a service pack to Windows Vista :rolleyes:

Thanks for notifying everyone of this -Hiroshi- :) I remember this from one of Long Zheng's blog posts where he incorporated Flikr into Windows Explorer - very nice! :)

No problem, I'm working on a few others from various different websites like Arstechnica and Activewin. :) I'll post them if anyone wants them.

[-KJ]

Is it time consuming making these scripts? Or are they flexible with different sites?

[Calum Veteran]

No problem, I'm working on a few others from various different websites like Arstechnica and Activewin. :) I'll post them if anyone wants them.

Well I'm sure I'll find them useful (for many of the sites I visit, including Neowin) for when I finally install Windows 7. So, thank you in advance :D

[-Hiroshi-]

Is it time consuming making these scripts? Or are they flexible with different sites?

Takes me half a minute to create a new search, only restraints is that the page needs to support RSS. What it basically does is that the websites themselves don't support OpenSearch, but Windows Live Search does, and so it uses Live Search to search the pages which feature RSS.

Brandon already created one for Deviantart, you can find it in the article.

Made a Wikipedia one.. - Download

I could be wrong, or it could be a bug in firefox, but it doesn't look like Wikipedia has RSS but it still works..

Edited January 4, 2009 by -Hiroshi-

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Hehe cool, good to see some people trying out my feature :)

[Calum Veteran]

Hehe cool, good to see some people trying out my feature :)

Oh wow, is that the feature you were appointed to develop? Or one that you helped think up? etc. (I don't know how Windows development works :p)

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Oh wow, is that the feature you were appointed to develop? Or one that you helped think up? etc. (I don't know how Windows development works :p )

Using OpenSearch was my idea and I built the original prototype, but not without some crucial help from a couple other brilliant folks :) Because of that work I'm the dev owner of the feature for Win7. Of course it takes a lot of work from people all around the Find & Organize team to actually make it happen. Lots of pieces had to come together to pull it off.

[Calum Veteran]

Using OpenSearch was my idea and I built the original prototype, but not without some crucial help from a couple other brilliant folks :) Because of that work I'm the dev owner of the feature for Win7. Of course it takes a lot of work from people all around the Find & Organize team to actually make it happen. Lots of pieces had to come together to pull it off.

Well I don't know how often this happens in Microsoft, but you must be proud that the idea you thought of (and later built a prototype of) was implemented into Windows and will become a very handy feature? :) (obviously when Windows 7 RTMs and is adopted by more people).

My dream job would be to work in Microsoft on one of the Windows teams, in the future, after I've learnt much more and graduated university... I can only dream though :p

[l Ancient l]

The idea is nice and the feature is from a "good-to-have" series...

cJr., nice dream :rolleyes: Id also like to work but on design :D

[Zickar]

Is it like the Keyword feature in Firefox ?? Just a question because I still don't understand it

[-Hiroshi-]

Hehe cool, good to see some people trying out my feature :)

Awesome, it's an absolutely brilliant idea, and I think it can be categorized under "Now why didn't someone think of that sooner?!"

[burnblue]

I hope you guys have tried the Flickr and DeviantArt osdx plugins that are out there.

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/30/a-...rch-connectors/

Opening DeviantArt images directly inside Explorer and setting them as your background wallpaper really shows you how cool / effective this feature can be. Unfortunately I couldn't find cool uses for it beside image stuff just yet -- most plugins are just searches for web pages on websites which I am quite fine with doing on the browser. I'm not part of an enterprise with Sharepoint where I would get utility out of searching for Office docs on a company share. Obviously you can't have stuff like YouTube videos looking like regular video in Explorer (or can you? Someone please do this).

If Federated Search can do such a good job with images, can we also interact with other files in Explorer instead of just finding the containing webpage?

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Is it like the Keyword feature in Firefox ?? Just a question because I still don't understand it

Not sure what you're referring to. Most browsers use OpenSearch Description Files to add custom search providers to their search boxes. This is a bit different, as the browser just takes you to the HTML view of the results. In our case, we use OpenSearch to add the location and then RSS or Atom to enumerate the results and display them in a rich client view, the same view we use for desktop search results. There's also a lot of fancy behind the scenes work to make the items work as if they were local or on a network share (so you have drag-and-drop, open / right-click, previews, etc).

We're working on an in-depth blog post, so keep an eye on the E7 blog over the coming weeks.

[Snowl]

Wow Brandon, I love this feature (:

Very cool. If I wanted to add a website, would it need to support RSS or Atom, for it too work?

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Wow Brandon, I love this feature (:

Very cool. If I wanted to add a website, would it need to support RSS or Atom, for it too work?

Yeah, the site will need to expose the results as either RSS or Atom. Either that, or you'd need to write a proxy that can generate the RSS or Atom feed, as Long Zheng did with his Flickr prototype.

[Snowl]

Yeah, the site will need to expose the results as either RSS or Atom. Either that, or you'd need to write a proxy that can generate the RSS or Atom feed, as Long Zheng did with his Flickr prototype.

Hmm... How does the wikipedia one work? S:

Anyway, thanks for the info. :)

[Chaks]

Here is mine - Twitter Search Connector :)

[-Hiroshi-]

Here is mine - Twitter Search Connector :)

Nice.. it would've been cool if you guys had posted the scripts I had made up on the front page, instead of stealing the links from my first post that I spent some time investigating for...

[Chaks]

Nice.. it would've been cool if you guys had posted the scripts I had made up on the front page, instead of stealing the links from my first post that I spent some time investigating for...

I am not a regular visitor of forums and I noticed this thread only after you posted the link in the comments. Will keep an eye on the forums :)

And FYI I did not steal the links, Google will anyhow take you there ;)

[FiB3R]

Awesome feature :)

Loving the DeviantArt Connector

www.istartedsomething.com seems to be down so can't get the Flickr Connector yet.

Would it be possible to make a YouTube Connector that only searches for videos that are HD, and also have the option to download? That would be sweet. :)

[tranceandy]

This really is a great feature. I find it really useful and a time saver :D

[Calum Veteran]

This really is a great feature. I find it really useful and a time saver :D

Mannn, I really can't wait until I can use Windows 7! :(