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How to: Turn Camino address bar into custom quick search

Fri Mar 2, 2007 12:54 AM EST
technology, internet, apple, web, tech, computer, mac, computers, help, how-to, firefox, tutorial, browser, os-x, mozilla, mac-os-x, dictionary, camino
By Alec Ananian

Search custom websites like Dictionary.com by typing a single word or phrase into your Camino address bar.

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This is a very short tutorial explaining how you can turn the address bar of popular Mac OS X web browser Camino into a quick search bar. I know there are widgets for searching, but I'm not comfortable with continually running such widgets on my Mac. So, I decided to find an alternative...

I find myself heading over to Dictionary.com quite a bit - I need to stop talking to people who use big words. I soon got tired of typing the URL out each time i decided to visit, so I looked for an alternative. Unfortunately, Camino doesn't allow you to customize the built-in address bar search... it comes as a Google searcher and it stays as a Google searcher. Here's my solution (and in this example I will be using Dictionary.com, but anything can be in its place):

  1. Figure out the URL pattern of the site you want to search. This can be easily done by simply conducting a couple of searches and noting the similarities. With Dictionary.com, it is quite obvious. Your search results are always in this form: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/<query>.
  2. Configure Camino. Like Firefox, to configure Camino, type about:config into your address bar. If this is your first time, it may alert you... don't worry, we're not going to kill anything.
  3. Filter the fields. You'll see a lot of fields and values which we don't need to worry about. Filter your results by typing "keyword" into the filter box. This will narrow the list down to two items.
  4. Plug in the new values. In the keyword.URL field, you will enter in the observed search pattern. In this example, the value would be "http://www.dictionary.com/browse/". Simply double click the field and type in the new value. Now you'll actually have to enable the keyword searcher. To do this, double click the keyword.enabled field to set it to true.
  5. Restart Camino. When you return - test it out! Just type a word into the address bar and hit enter, you should be taken to its result on Dictionary.com.
  6. Customize it. I know not everybody will be wanting to search a dictionary. You can even customize it to search Newsvine... whatever! Unfortunately, you can only have one quick search at a time. What I would like to do is have the ability to type "d <query>" for searching Dictionary.com or "n <query>" for searching Newsvine, as some other browsers do. Until then, this is the next best substitute!

Currently tested (and working) on versions:

  • 1.1b
  • 1.0.3

Questions and comments are welcome. Also, please let me know if you have tested it on a different version of Camino so I can report it above.

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  • Public Discussion (4)
Joel Suplido

I have been doing the following for quite some time now. Here's how I do my searches in Camino.

1. Add a search query as a bookmark. For example for Newsvine, do a search then bookmark that search result URL (Command-K). For example, if I search for "iphone", the resulting url would be "http://www.newsvine.com/iphone" Camino will let you name the bookmark and create it in any folder.

2. Go to the Bookmark Manager (Command-B).

3. Look for the saved search URL, right click (ctrl-click) and choose Edit Bookmark Info.

Edit location and change the search query "iphone" to "%s"
Your earlier search URL will now be "http://www.newsvine.com/%s"

4. The key is the shortcut. Give your bookmark a shortcut letter/s. For this one, type "n"

5. Test it out. Go to Camino's address bar and type "n iphone" or "n cisco"

Here are a few of my other search URLs. Just provide your own shortcuts!

http://www.answers.com/%s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s
http://search.ebay.com/%s

  • 2 votes
Reply#1 - Fri Mar 2, 2007 3:22 AM EST
Elliot Vos

Yeah, I use the bookmarks method, which works in Firefox too. I think it's a bit easier to explain to people, and doesn't require a restart.

  • 1 vote
#1.1 - Fri Mar 2, 2007 3:14 PM EST
Joel Suplido

...and since it works in Camino and Firefox, it works great with Flock too.

  • 1 vote
#1.2 - Fri Mar 2, 2007 3:34 PM EST
Alec Ananian

Wow, okay... I'll have to try this out. Thanks!

  • 1 vote
#1.3 - Fri Mar 2, 2007 5:09 PM EST
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