Search Anywhere Firefox Extension: TutorialDescriptionThe Search Anywhere extension for Firefox enables you to query any web-based search service (Google, Wikipedia, Youtube, your favorite web dictionary, your company's Intranet search facility – you name it!) with a few clicks. Search Anywhere comes with some preinstalled search services, but the real power of the extension is the possibility to add your own search services – any web-based search service can be accessed. Read on to find out how. Download and InstallFirst you need to download and install the Search Anywhere extension for Firefox. You will find a link to an automatic installer on my Firefox extension main page. Basic UsageSearch Anywhere is essentially a submenu labeled Search Anywhere (possibly localized to your language) in the context menu of Firefox. (The context menu is accessed by right-clicking anywhere on a web page.) The submenu contains those installed and active search services you have selected. It looks something like this (when using the Finnish version of Firefox):
In screenshot 1, the word "Podcast" on CNN's web site has been right-clicked, and the Search Anywhere submenu has been opened. In this submenu Wikipedia has been chosed as the search service to use. The submenu contains all installed, and active, search services (Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Youtube and The Free Dictionary). These are just the preinstalled search services – you can install any search service you like (more on this further down). The result of the "Podcast" query in Wikipedia is opened in a separate result tab in Firefox:
Installing Search ServicesYou can install your own search services for use with Search Anywhere. This is the real power of the extension. You can now access your favorite search services – on the web, on your company's Intranet, on some Extranet service you have privileges to access – with just a few clicks! Any web-based search service (that can be accessed with a GET request) can be added. To install a search service, follow these steps:
1. Open the Firefox Extensions dialog by selecting Extensions in the Tools menu.
3. Click the Options button (or Asetukset in the Finnish version of Firefox). This will open the options dialog of the Search Anywhere extension.
4. Click the
5. Give your new search service a name (it will show in the Search Anywhere submenu), enter a pattern for the search service and provide a description (optional).
A pattern is a URL to the search service, where the varying part (the word
or string searched for) is replaced by
If you are not sure what pattern your search service should have, you might
want to make a search using the search service's regular web interface first
(e.g.
http://www.google.com
for Google). When you have performed your search, the address field of the web
browser will contain the URL (a string normally starting with
(In case the URL did not change, even though you made a query using the search service's regular web interface, the search service probably uses the POST method to receive its results. If this is the case, it is a bit trickier to figure out the pattern. You need to check the source code of the service's regular web interface.)
6. Test your search service by clicking the Playing around with Search ServicesIn addition to installing new search services, you can do some other things on the options dialog.
Click the
Click the
Click the
Click the
Click the Activating/Deactivating Search ServicesIf you want to deactivate a search service (without deleting it), uncheck the checkbox in front of the name of the search service. That's it! Have fun using your new Firefox extension. Please do not hesitate to send comment, bug reports, feature requests to me at mickel dot gronroos at gmail dot com. |
button in order to install a
new search service. This will bring up the New Search Service
dialog.
button. A browser window opens showing the result of the test.
If your pattern is OK, the result window should contain the results of
a query in the search service you are defining.
button to edit the selected search service
(e.g. rename it, change its pattern or edit the description).
button to delete the selected search
service (for good).
button to access this online tutorial.
or 
buttons to
move the selected search services up and down in the list of search services.
This will affect the order in which the search services are shown in
the Search Anywhere submenu.