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
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