Google Chrome's OmniBar is cool. http://www.dashken.net/uploads/technology/software/Google_Chrome/Chrome_autocomplete.jpg You can do dang near anything in that little bar, the most powerful of which you can do in Firefox -- with no addons! (I'll bother you about Firefox addons some other day -- the folks who had to suffer through my West side meeting presentation have already heard it) Let's take a look at a few other cool things that you can do with a stock (no addon, theme or hack) Firefox installation: **Auto-I'm-Feeling-Lucky-Fail** By default, Firefox takes any 'URL' that it doesn't recognize, attempts to tack on a .com, and if that doesn't work, does a Google "I'm feeling lucky" search on the text. This often leads to confusion when you end up on some random doorhole site in the middle of nowhere. So change it! In the URL bar, open "about:config" and find the entry 'keyword.URL'. This is the URL that Firefox uses to do the above search. You can easily update it to just do a simple Google search by replacing the entry with: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&&q= This will automatically bring you to Google for unknown entries. The upshot of this is that you now have a fully functioning google search, only an alt-d (or F6) away! **Bookmarklets and Custom Searches** This is where the real power of Firefox's URL bar lay: The ability to define custom searches and bookmarks to open using keywords in the URL bar, which Mozilla calls "Smart Keywords." http://img10.yfrog.com/img10/3372/r0l.png http://img517.yfrog.com/img517/4923/vkp.png There are three kinds of keywords that can be created: Bookmarklets (JavaScript snippets that do cool things), Custom Searches, and just plain old bookmarks, which are browsed to when you type in the keyword. ***Bookmarklets*** Bookmarklets allow anyone with a small degree of knowledge in JavaScript to write a nice little script to do, well, something useful. In my case, my use is easily tweeting things. So I have made some JavaScript bookmarklets to help me: Tweet Selected Text: javascript:var%20r=window.open('http://twitter.com/home?status='+escape(document.getSelection().replace(/\s/g,'%20').replace(/%20{2,}/g,'%20'))); This uses window.open to open a twitter status update url with the encoded version of my text selection. Tweet A Link: javascript:var%20r=window.open("http://twitter.com/home?status="+document.location); Easy: uses window.open to post the current document.location! These were hacked together after fifteen minutes of learning javascript from some other bookmarklets. [https://www.facebook.com/share_options.php] [http://codex.wordpress.org/Press_This] Note that the var%20r= is necessary if you don't want to lose the contents of the current window. There are tons of other javascriptlets that allow you to do a whole lot, from toggling CSS in a page, to a small calculator, even a full scale Javascript shell! But they do you no good if you have to type them in every time; speed is the prime concern with bookmarklets, to make them fast to type and get the info from. So you can use keywords to expedite this greatly! Keywords are what allowed me to type g [search term] in my above examples (r0l.png and vkp.png) and can easily be added to any bookmarklet. First, bookmark one of those bookmarklets. The problem with this is that Firefox does not realize this is a link, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to add it. So, what you can do is go to the menu->bookmarks->organize bookmarks. This opens up your bookmarks library. Click Organize->New bookmark. Give it a decent name (Tweet This), and in location, you will put the entire bookmarklet, including javascript: (javascript:var%20r=window.open("http://twitter.com/home?status="+document.location);) now, keyword, you can enter any single word (tweet) this is the word you will use to execute the bookmarklet, so remember it, and make it something you will be able to remember next time you open up Firefox. Finally give it a nice description. Congratulations! You've made your first bookmarklet! now press alt-d and type tweetthis (not in your webmail though ;)) You'll be given a new twitter home window with that status filled in (if you're logged in) **Custom searches** Custom Searches (or smart keywords) allow you to easily search on any site without having to open up that site first. They are also insanely easy to add to Firefox, more so than Bookmarklets. So, let's say that you wanted a search for all of Lostpedia (http://lostpedia.wikia.com) 1) Right click in the search box 2) Select Add a Keyword for this Search 3) Enter "Lostpedia search" or whatever you like into Name 4) Enter lost, or something more memorable in keyword (keep it short!) 5) make sure you create it in a special folder for these searches, so that your bookmarks do not become cluttered or confusing. My Firefox has a quick searches folder. 6) click add. Congratulations, you've now gained the knowledge to super charge your searching, make it faster to get or share the information you need, and Pimp your Firefox! Below is a copy of my quick search folder. Download it as html, open up the Bookmark Library, and click "Import and Backup" and then Import Html. All the quicksearches, including keywords, descriptions, et al, will be added to your library. most of these came from my own additions (All of the Smart keywords, the Tweet This, Twitter Post and Tweet Selected Text bookmarklets), the tinyurl bookmarklet came from http://tinyurl.com/#toolbar, the facebook one came from https://www.facebook.com/share_options.php, English conversion came from http://translate.google.com/translate_tools, all of the other bookmarklets came from https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/ and http://www.bookmarklets.com/tools/categor.html http://phrkonlsh.pastebin.ca/1463779 On the right side is "Download Raw." Right click it, save it as bookmarks.html or whatever.html. [we need a wiki :o] -- Thanks and best regards, Ryan Rix OnBoard-NG --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss