Section 5.1. Searching


5.1. Searching

In Section 3.1.1.1, I discussed the Search Bar, which is a wonderfully useful feature in Firefox. However, the Search Bar is just the tip of the iceberg. Firefox actually offers users several search tools, making it truly, as one reviewer called it, the "Searcher's Browser."

5.1.1. Find in This Page and Find As You Type

What if you're trying to find a word or phrase in a web page you're viewing? In most browsers, you press Ctrl+F, which opens an annoying dialog box that you have to move out of the way of the text just so you can see what you've found. There has to be a better way, and Firefox has nailed it: the Find in This Page tool. To begin using this, press Ctrl+F or go to Edit Find in This Page. At the bottom of your Firefox window, an alert bar will open, as shown in [click here].


Even easier

The "Begin finding when you begin typing" option (Tools Options Advanced Accessibility) lets you skip the Ctrl+F. If you enable this option, Firefox will automatically open the Find box and begin searching the page as soon as you type any letter.

No annoying dialog box for Firefox! Instead, the Find box appears at the bottom of the page, out of the way yet easily accessible. Now, you probably think you just type in the word or words you're looking for, and Firefox searches for them. You're right, but Firefox goes beyond that.

As you begin typing the first letters of the word you're searching for, Firefox immediately begins finding and highlighting those letters. For instance, say you're at an official Firefox web page, and you want to find the word "Firefox" on the page. Type an "f," and instantly Firefox jumps to and highlights the first "f" on the page. Type an "i" after the "f," and Firefox now jumps to and highlights the first instance of "fi" on the page. Add an "r" next, and then an "e," and now "fire" is the focus, which means you've probably found the word you were looking for: Firefox. Take a look at Figure 5-2 for a screenshot of what you might see.


It stays in place

The Find alert bar never moves during this process, of course, since it's anchored to the bottom of the window.

This process of highlighting the letters, and eventually words, that you're looking for is called Find As You Type. Once you get used to it, you'll wonder how you ever searched without it.

But there's more! Find in This Page has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Take a look back at [click here]. See the buttons for Find Next and Find Previous? Those allow you to move easily between instances of the word you're searching for, either down or up the page. Firefox highlights each instance of the word as it finds it, and they remain highlighted so you can see at a glance all the places where the word appears. You can use the Highlight button to toggle on and off the highlighting of your search words on the page, but I recommend leaving it on, as highlighting can really help you zero in on the terms you want to find.

Finally, the "Match case" checkbox does just that: if you check it, the word on the web page must match exactly with the word you typed. In other words, searching for "firefox" will not match "Firefox" if you have "Match case" checked.

If your search word isn't found, Firefox beeps and displays a note on the Find alert bar informing you that it's failed. The search text box that you were typing in also turns a dark pink, to further call attention to the fact that your search isn't working.

Firefox's in-page search tools are the best I've seen in any browser. It's amazing how simple, yet how effective, those tools can be, and the developers are to be commended. Excellent job!

5.1.2. Smart Keywords

Firefox (like its big brother Mozilla) also enables you to turn normal bookmarks into mini-search engines, through the use of Smart Keywords. So what are Smart Keywords and how do they work?

Let's say you constantly want to search my blog, The Open Source Weblog, but you don't want to have to go to the site every time you want to perform a search. Normally you have to go to http://opensource.weblogsinc.com to type in your query, but that's just too much work. Let's set up a Smart Keyword instead.

Point Firefox to the blog, at http://opensource.weblogsinc.com. At the top of the page is a search box. If this were a typical search, you would type "firefox" into the box and press Search, and then begin checking out the search results. Firefox, however, has a much more efficient method up its sleeve. Instead of typing in the search box, right-click in it and select "Add a Keyword for this Search," as pictured in [click here].


You will next see the dialog box shown in [click here], in which you need to set up your Smart Keyword.


In the Name text box, enter the title of the site, but indicate that it's for search purposes by appending (search) at the end, like this: The Open Source Weblog (search). Now you have to come up with a keyword, which will be used for all future searches of the bookmarked site. Enter your keyword in the Keyword text box. Since this is The Open Source Weblog, for the purposes of this example we'll use the word "open"; however, you can use any keyword meaningful to you. Finally, place the bookmark in a folder somewhere amongst your bookmarks, and press OK to close the Add Bookmark window. Now it's time to test your new Smart Keyword!

In Firefox's Location Bar (the place in which you normally see a web address, or URL), type the following and press the Go button or the Enter key on your keyboard:

open thunderbird

If everything has been entered correctly in the bookmark's properties, you should now be viewing the results page for your search of The Open Source Weblog, displaying a list of blog posts that mention Thunderbird, the open source email program that is Firefox's relative (they're both descended from Mozilla). Next, try some of the following searches by entering each one into the Location Bar and pressing Go or Enter:

open linux open internet explorer open mac os x

In each case, the search results page loads, ready to go with links to blog postings.

I use Smart Keywords as a way to perform fast searches of web sites that I use all the time. Once you get used to them, you'll start relying on them as well.

5.1.2.1 Smart keywords you'll love

Here are some Smart Keywords that I use. To add them manually, go to Bookmarks Manage Bookmarks, then press New Bookmark and enter the following information.You can, of course, change the actual keywords to something you find easier to remember (the %s in each of the following is filled in with your search terms when you perform your search so make sure to leave it in):

Path

Location

Keyword

A9 (http://www.a9.com)

http://a9.com/%s

a9

AllMusic Artist Search (http://www.allmusic.com)

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&opt1=1&sql=%s

allm

AllTheWeb (http://www.alltheweb.com)

ttp://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web)=any&query=%s

all

Dictionary.com (http://www.dictionary.com)

http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=%s

dict

IMDB (http://www.imdb.com)

http://us.imdb.com/Find?%s

imdb

Teoma (http://www.teoma.com)

http://s.teoma.com/search?submit=Search&q=%s

t

Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s&go=Go

wiki

Yahoo! Search (http://search.yahoo.com)

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=%s

y




    Don't Click on the Blue E.
    OReilly Publishers.(Digital Aduio Essentials)(Dont Click on the Blue E!)(IMovie HD and iDVD)(Network Security Tools)(Photoshop Elements 3 For ... Review): An article from: The Bookwatch
    ISBN: 596009399
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    Year: 2003
    Pages: 93

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