Firefox search plugin for Ubuntuforums

[gasparov]

Firefox search plugin

$ wget http://www.tranza.it/ubuntusearch.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf firefoxsearch.tar.gz
$ sudo mv ubuntuforums.*  /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/searchplugins/
$ rm firefoxsearch.tar.gz

N.B. Make sure there is no other ubuntuforums.xxx in the directory you are working

[JonahRowley]

Great tip! But I use Opera, so here's how to do it in Opera. Opera is not so cool when it comes to extending it, so it's a little more kludgy.

Open up ~/.opera/search.ini in a text editor, gedit seems to be popular, but I'm a vim user. You'll see lots of entries like this:

[Search Engine 1]
Name=&Google
URL=http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&sourceid=opera&num=%i&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Query=
Key=g
Is post=0
Has endseparator=0
Encoding=utf-8
Search Type=0
Verbtext=17063
Position=-1
Nameid=0

There are a few limitations here. First, the entries are numbered, and they must remain in order, or it doesn't seem to work. I usually take entries I don't use out of this file, since there is a lot of "junk" in there. Just make sure you don't mess up the order.

Name is what apprears in the search box, the & is to assign an accelerator, or keyboard shortcut. URL is the URL to submit to, %s gets replaced with the search string. There is also %i, which is replaced with the prefered number of search results per page, but I don't use that. Key is also useful, if I set my Key to "u", I can enter u firefox into the address bar to search, as well as using the search box. IsPost should be 0, it defines the HTTP request method for the search. As for the others, I just don't touch them, and everything stays fine. Also, it picks up the icon automatically.

Here is my section for Ubuntu forum searched. Don't forget about the order! You might have to change the number of yours.

[Search Engine 7]
Name=&Ubuntuforums
URL=http://www.ubuntuforums.org/search.php?q=%s
Query=
Key=u
Is post=0
Has endseparator=0
Encoding=utf-8
Search Type=0
Verbtext=17063
Position=-1
Nameid=0

A tip about the mozilla tip, you don't have to use sudo, you can also copy this to your personal profile directory. Look in ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini for your profiles directory, and copy the files to ~/.mozilla/firefox/<insert profile directory here>/search/.

[WildTangent]

what does it do?

-Wild

[ow50]

This should work on any Mozilla browser. Tested on Epiphany.

javascript:q = '' + (window.getSelection ? window.getSelection() : document.getSelection ? document.getSelection() : document.selection.createRange().text); if (!q) q = prompt('Search Ubuntu Forums for:', ''); if (q!=null) location='http://www.ubuntuforums.org/search.php?q=' + escape(q).replace(/ /g, '+'); void 0

Use that as the address for a bookmark. It will pick up any text you have selected or if nothing is selected it will show a dialog where you can enter keywords to search for.

[JonahRowley]

WildTangent: These add an "Ubuntu Forums" search option to the search box next to the address bar.

ow50: Even better, and this works in Opera as well

[poofyhairguy]

Thanks..

[Josh M]

Worked for me, thanks!

[Heliode]

Excellent! Just what I needed actually!

[WildTangent]

nifty...me like

-Wild

[23meg]

i was thinking of making one myself; thankfully i remembered to do a search first!

this is so good it should be made sticky. i'm sure it will encourage searching. you should also submit it to the mycroft db.