scrshot_firefox_quicksearch.png A lot of people don’t know one of the nicest features about Firefox: quick search. In Firefox you can turn any bookmark into a search action.

For that just create a new bookmark and add the following properties:

  • Name: Whatever you like
  • Location: URL of the search but with %s where the query is supposed to be
  • Keyword: The shortcut you want for this search

So for example in the screenshot the keyword is tel. Now you can enter “tel kay in basel” to find all Kay’s in Basel. A few shortcuts I have configures are.

Name

Location

Keyword

Example

local.ch phone book

http://tel.local.ch/q/?q=

tel

tel patrice in st. gallen

Yahoo! Search

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

s

s Webtuesday

map.search.ch

http://map.search.ch/%s

map

map st.gallen

local.ch “map”

http://tel.local.ch/%s

dir

dir st.gallen linsebuehlstr.

The name and keyword can of course be chosen to fit your needs. And the URLs are of course in one line, I had to break them here a bit because of display issues.

That’s how I search most of my information. Though with a few more shortcuts defined. Somehow I’m able to remember all or most them, strangely enough.