One thing about opensource software is that many features are added but never mentioned. In commercial software, every feature gets hyped as the best thing since [fill in the blank ].
Here’s one nice little feature that I use alot on Firefox.
- Go to Bookmarks and right on any bookmark.
- Select Properties.
- Under Keyword: enter a short keyword.
For example for freebizware.com, I entered fbw. - Click OK to save it.
- Enter the keyword on the address bar (or URL bar - the thingy that you key in the web address).
- Hit Enter.
Cool! Most of my favourite sites are now keyworded.
Popularity: 74%
Yes, I have been using this feature a lot. An even better part of this is the fact that you can use variables in your shortcuts. For instance, if I want to do a google search, all I need to type is:
g freebizware
The shortcut ‘Location’ entry looks like this:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s&btnG=Google+Search
notice the %s in there, which will be replaced by whatever is behind the shortcut ‘Keyword’
Another one I use a lot if my shortcut for the php manual, which simply looks like this:
http://www.php.net/%s
Thanks to PHP’s system of loading the manual entry for a specific method if you just type the method name after the php.net url, I can now type in
php fopen
to see the manual entry for fopen()
Yes, shortcuts are awesome!
Thanks for this additional information, a post in its own right!
Do you know of any way to get Firefox to quit url-encoding the %s string? Eg., a website /path/to/info, where I usually know the path/to/info, but typing in the preceding url is a pain.
My previous comment had < … > automagically edited out. The example was a website <long url name blah blah blah>/path/to/info, where I usually know the path/to/info, but typing in the preceding url is a pain.
Hi Robin,
I’m not quite sure I get your question. Stefan explains it pretty well above. You can have a very long URL but you just replace the part that you need to subsititute as %s and assign a shortcut.
So you change your /path/to/info to
/path/to/%s
The url could be assigned blah and you just type
blah info
Hi, Ken,
You probably had trouble parsing my question because the text I had enclosed in angle brackets got automagically deleted.
The problem comes in where I want to supply a path containing forward slashes to the %s argument, but Firefox URL-encodes the forward slashes. Suppose I specify the quicksearch as “biglongname.com/blahdeblah.cgi/gratuitouslylonggarbage/%s”,
and the arguments I wish to supply to the %s are paths that descend from there, containing forward slashes. Well, let’s say the keyword I want for the big long name is goober, so I want to type in the location bar things like “goober major-category/minor-category/item”. I want the %s substitution to result in a path that looks like “biglongname.com/blahdeblah.cgi/gratuitouslylonggarbage/major-category/minor-category/item”.
The trouble is that Firefox URL-encodes the argument before doing the %s substitution. Therefore, the result of my quicksearch looks like “biglongname.com/blahdeblah.cgi/gratuitouslylonggarbage/major-category/minor-category/item”,
which of course resolves to an error 404, page not found, because the http server at biglongname.com is looking for a pathname without URL-encoded slashes.
Sorry so verbose, but I hope this explains the question.
To summarize, how do I get Firefox to quit URL-encoding the argument to the quick-search keyword?
This website’s software hit me again. It URL-decoded the URL encodings I put in my previous message, resulting in a comment that makes no sense. Sorry this is so difficult, but second-guessing this website’s software is maddening.
When I listed the long path a second time, saying it resolves to an error 404, what I originally typed had % - 2 - F instead of forward slash for the final two forward slashes. I didn’t have the space, dash, space between the %, the 2, and the F, and freebizware.com URL-decoded it into real forward slashes.
So, trying once again, to phrase my question such that it makes sense…
If my keyword is “goober”, and I type in “goober major-category/minor-category/item”, Firefox URL-encodes the argument before doing the %s substitution, resulting in “biglongname.com/blahdeblah.cgi/gratuitouslylonggarbage/major-category % - 2 - F minor-category % - 2 - F item” (without the spaces and hyphens). Well, URL-encoded slashes do not get URL-decoded when they are part of the URL path, only when they are part of the query string, so the server at biglongname.com returns error 404, page not found.
That is why I want to find some way to tell Firefox to quit URL-encoding the argument on that particular quicksearch.
Like, if instead of %s, it had a %S, or something, or maybe a keyword in the netscape bookmark mark-up that the quick-searches translate to, telling it whether or not to URL-encode the argument.
There, let’s see if freebizware.com prints this comment as intended.
Thanks for your patience.
Ok think I get what you mean.
For the subsititution you want to use a path like “major-category/minor-category/item” to replace %s right?
So take a simple example, this url
http://php.net/manual/en/index.php
My bookmark:
http://cn.php.net/%s
Shortcut:
php
On the URL bar I type
php manual/en/index.php
Right?
This work ok for my Firefox 1.5.0.7 Windows.
When I make the same bookmark in my Firefox 1.5.0.7 Windows with the same shortcut, typing the same
php manual/en/index.phpon the location bar results in
http://cn.php.net/manual% 2 Fen% 2 Flanguage.references.php
(without the spaces between the %, the 2, and the F), which results in error 404 page not found.
Since it works for you but not for me, it may be a configuration option. However, I can’t find any documentation or any property sheets to let me change it.