Just annotations of little "how to's", so I know I can find how to do something I've already done when I need to do it again, in case I don't remember anymore, which is not unlikely. Hopefully they can be useful to others, but I can't guarantee that it will work, or that it won't even make things worse.
Bookmarking a search, then editing it on the bookmark manager, is the easiest way to add custom search engines in firefox
Posted 01-17-2024 at 01:08 PM by the dsc
Tags custom search, e-nostalgia, firefox, rant
Chrome provides a somewhat more straightforward way to add custom searches with custom parameters. Some people suggest rather cumbersome ways to do it in firefox, like editing some text file with some xml formatting, then allowing some developer option in about:config, then dragging and dropping the file somewhere.
But unless that has some hidden advantage that I haven't imagined yet, a much handier way is to first go on some web search, do some generic/token/fake search with the desired custom parameters (like searching for "searchquery" with the custom parameters), bookmark the search result, then go on in Firefox' bookmark manager, and add a keyword for that, while also replacing "searchquery" or whatever you've searched for for "%s" -- although it seems it may be changed for "{searchquery}" -- I don't get it.
AFAIK that only adds custom searches to be used in the address bar with the keyword, not context menu searches nor that separate tiny search-bar/field thing that there may be there somewhere as an option or default I no longer have.
Are my memories distorted or the old Opera browser (~12?), before turning into "Chropera," sort of had both of those things combined, you could have such custom searches on the address bar, but they'd be automatically added as a context menu search, no additional extensions needed?
That browser was almost like what the "Openbox" window manager is in terms of customization possibilities, it was amazing. Some people even had it configured in cleaner/simpler UIs like those that came somewhat after and have since become the new standard, but before those were officially implemented in Chrome (which didn't exist) or Firefox. Even easier than Openbox' customization, as much of the customization was based on dragging and dropping UI elements, bookmarklets and things like that, rather than only text editing (which isn't bad, but definitely not as easy). Makes me wonder if that version had been maintained or rebuilt for longer, maybe these days we'd have highly popular "Operabooks" instead of "Chromebooks," where Opera itself was some kind of Openbox-like DE/"OS" on top of whatever is that ChromeOS has Chrome, some stripped-down GNU-Linux or something.
But unless that has some hidden advantage that I haven't imagined yet, a much handier way is to first go on some web search, do some generic/token/fake search with the desired custom parameters (like searching for "searchquery" with the custom parameters), bookmark the search result, then go on in Firefox' bookmark manager, and add a keyword for that, while also replacing "searchquery" or whatever you've searched for for "%s" -- although it seems it may be changed for "{searchquery}" -- I don't get it.
AFAIK that only adds custom searches to be used in the address bar with the keyword, not context menu searches nor that separate tiny search-bar/field thing that there may be there somewhere as an option or default I no longer have.
Are my memories distorted or the old Opera browser (~12?), before turning into "Chropera," sort of had both of those things combined, you could have such custom searches on the address bar, but they'd be automatically added as a context menu search, no additional extensions needed?
That browser was almost like what the "Openbox" window manager is in terms of customization possibilities, it was amazing. Some people even had it configured in cleaner/simpler UIs like those that came somewhat after and have since become the new standard, but before those were officially implemented in Chrome (which didn't exist) or Firefox. Even easier than Openbox' customization, as much of the customization was based on dragging and dropping UI elements, bookmarklets and things like that, rather than only text editing (which isn't bad, but definitely not as easy). Makes me wonder if that version had been maintained or rebuilt for longer, maybe these days we'd have highly popular "Operabooks" instead of "Chromebooks," where Opera itself was some kind of Openbox-like DE/"OS" on top of whatever is that ChromeOS has Chrome, some stripped-down GNU-Linux or something.
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