Re: Search from address bar

yOn Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 11:22:36AM -0400, Jorge Arellano Cid wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 11:06:36PM +0200, Johannes Hofmann wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 09:21:51AM +0200, Johannes Hofmann wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jul 09, 2013 at 05:02:12PM -0400, Jorge Arellano Cid wrote:
> > > > Hi Johannes,
> > > > 
> > > > On Tue, Jul 09, 2013 at 09:51:39PM +0200, Johannes Hofmann wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 08:20:27PM +0200, Johannes Hofmann wrote:
> > > > > > On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 04:41:23PM +0000, corvid wrote:
> > > > > > > Johannes wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 03:16:09PM +0300, Aki Helin wrote:
> > > > > > > > > Hi, 
> > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > Currently when using a window manager where focus follows mouse, making a
> > > > > > > > > search usually requires you to reach for the mouse. One way to avoid this
> > > > > > > > > would be to allow using search engine(s) directly from the address bar.
> > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > Searches would have to be differentiated somehow from URLs. Dillo already
> > > > > > > > > has a customizable list of engines in preferences, so one natural solution
> > > > > > > > > would be to interpret url strings which start with the name of a search
> > > > > > > > > engine as searches to be performed using it, so that e.g. 'wikipedia
> > > > > > > > > slartibartfast', 'google foo' and 'weather oulu' do what you would expect.
> > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > Below is a quick patch I've used to do this for a while, should anyone 
> > > > > > > > > else find this feature useful.
> > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > This has been discussed before, but somehow wasn't completed. I like
> > > > > > > > your idea to reuse the search engine name to derive the shortcut.
> > > > > > > > However, I would allow arbitrary prefixes of the search engine name
> > > > > > > > as in the slightly modified patch below.
> > > > > > > > What do you think?
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > This is good, although there's a leading space in the search text that
> > > > > > > some of my search sites don't like.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > The leading space should of course not be part of the search term.
> > > > > 
> > > > > If nobody objects I will commit this tomorrow. 
> > > > 
> > > >   The current format for search_url in a_Misc_parse_search_url() is:
> > > > 
> > > >      "[<label> ]<url>"
> > > > 
> > > >   IMHO, it'd be much better to have it this way in the patch:
> > > > 
> > > >      "[<label[:abbr]> ]<url>"
> > > > 
> > > >   where "abbr" means abbreviation. e.g.
> > > > 
> > > >      search_url="Free Dictionary:fd http://www.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
> > > > 
> > > >   that way I could search "slick" from the location box like this:
> > > > 
> > > >      fd slick
> > > > 
> > > >   and keep the descriptive names for the GUI interface.
> > > 
> > > The idea of the proposed patch is to allow arbitrary prefixes of the
> > > descriptive names as shortcuts, so
> > > 
> > > goo dillo
> > > duck dillo
> > > 
> > > but also
> > > 
> > > g dillo
> > > d dillo
> > > 
> > > would work without further configuration work. In case there is more
> > > than one match, the first wins.
> > 
> > Does this make sense or should do you prefer explicit configurable
> > shortcuts?
> 
>   It makes sense, but I prefer the configurable shortcuts.
> 
>   For instance, I have:
> 
> search_url="Free Dictionary http://www.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
> search_url="Free Dictionary (es) http://es.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
> 
>   and would like to be able to set it this way:
> 
> search_url="Free Dictionary:fd http://www.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
> search_url="Free Dictionary (es):fde http://es.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
> 

Ok, it makes sense to be able to optionally specify a shortcut, but
I'm a bit worried that the syntax of the search_url field get's more
and more complicated. We already have the ' ' as separator between
title and url, now we add a ':'.
I see two options:

* We stick with title and url only and for your example one would
  use:
search_url="fd Free Dictionary http://www.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
search_url="fde Free Dictionary (es) http://es.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
  and live with the "fd" and "fde" shortcurts beeing displayed as
  part of the title.

* Or we enhance the prefs parser and somehow have separate fields
  for url, title, and shortcut, i.e. something like that:
search_url="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/%s"
search_title="Free Dictionary"
search_shortcut="fd"
  where these three fields would have to be grouped together
  in some way.

Cheers,
Johannes