Do keyword searches still work in Firefox 44?

[Drumbrake]

I'm still not 100% sure, but today I've tried to add some keyword searches in Firefox 44 and it didn't seem to work properly: after going to wikipedia, I went to the searchbox, then clicked "Add a keyword for this search" and filled the keyword field - but the keyword hadn't actually be added to the bookmark, and I had to retype it again in the bookmarks Library, although the bookmark in itself had been created and they were recalled with the %s search string in the Library itself, as it should be for keywords searches.

I'll have to check this again later on, but it happened on several other websites: is this possibly a bug in Firefox 44 ?

[Grumpus]

May be something like closing and re-opening Firefox.
Ran into this with some forms of bookmarks in the past, haven't lately.
Try it and see if it shows up after closing and re-opening. Inconvenient as it is.

I got this when trying it out:
%s
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
%s may refer to format specifiers for variable interpolation in C standard and other libraries:
C string
%s, in printf format string
%s, in scanf format string
System time
%S, seconds in the strftime format string
%s, used to check the Unix timestamp
Disambiguation icon This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title %s.
If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

[therube]

Keyword searches changed, some will say, broke, of late.

There was a recent thread here ... ?
Something to do with places.sqlite & something not being cleared properly ...?

Yep, that worked, http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14495015.

[Brummelchen]

nah, not that kind of experiments again, i had that pointless discussion here not long ago.
some say its a bug, i say not.

in bookmark manager: some need to delete the old keyword, close the manager, re-open and set the new keyword.
working on sqlite without knowledge will destroy places!

firefox only understand one variable: %s (either lower or upper letter, dont mind)

create a bookmark like this
http://de.wikipedia.org/?search=%s (german) or
http://en.wikipedia.org/?search=%s (english) or
http://www.wikipedia.org/?search=%s (general)

set keyword as you like, i would prefer "wiki"

enter in address-bar: "wiki <searchword>"

[the-edmeister]

I'm still not 100% sure, but today I've tried to add some keyword searches in Firefox 44 and it didn't seem to work properly: after going to wikipedia, I went to the searchbox, then clicked "Add a keyword for this search" and filled the keyword field - but the keyword hadn't actually be added to the bookmark, and I had to retype it again in the bookmarks Library, although the bookmark in itself had been created and they were recalled with the %s search string in the Library itself, as it should be for keywords searches.

This whole "keyword" thing has been confusing to me - forever. I don't know if this is what Drumbrake is talking about.

The real old 'included' bookmarked Search Engines and the "supplied" keywords in the days of Firebird 0.6 & 0.7 http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches and years later http://kb.mozillazine.org/List_of_keyword_searches when Search functionality was added to the Location Bar - I never took the time to learn the differences between "search keywords" as done via the Search Bar / Location Bar and "keywords" added via bookmarks. Consequently I never used either of those features.

Overall, changes made with the OneOffButtons feature and inContent that I became aware of with Firefox 43.0 is with the Keyword field in about:preferences#search - between those two the "Edit Keyword" button for "Manage Search Engines" disappeared. With some help I found this hidden feature via a discussion of the new Logins Manager new, added features which also contains a "hidden field" but is a bit more 'discoverable' due to the Logins in-Content panel also having a contextual menu for those Password features; which lead me to finding it for the One-click Search Engines - which lacks the contextual menu.

You can double-click that field for each search engine to "open" the editable text field for adding / editing Search Keywords.

Sorry if that isn't what Drumbrake posted about - a "senior moment" with regards to my long lack of understanding of "Keywords".

I also started a KB thread at the official Firefox support website to get those items added to the KB articles.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forum ... les/711801
Might be a little confusing because I covered both the in-Content Search tab and the Saved Logins panel.

Ed

[eisneun]

the ed-meister said

With some help I found this hidden feature via a discussion of the new Logins Manager new, added features which also contains a "hidden field"

i reported the hidden keyword field in about:preferences#search back on March 1 2015
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14049761

[Drumbrake]

Well, this is indeed confusing: I *think* I'm not talking here about the same thing edmeister is talking - what I'm addressing here is the "add a keyword for this search" option that I've been using for a long time now and I assume it is what generally known as "keyword searches".

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches

I think the issue I'm discussing here may be related to the Add Bookmark Here addon, because I've observed that with this addon disabled keyword searches work as expected (a new bookmark is created with the custom search query as url AND the corresponding keyword is stored in the keyword field of this bookmark), whilst with the addon enabled the new bookmark is created with the correct query but the keyword field is empty.

In fact, even if the keyword is missing, the new bookmark can be recalled from the url bar with the %s parameter and it will work: it's just the actual keyword to invoke it that is missing.

[Brummelchen]

referring mozilla those sites are built-in for firefox - maybe the keyword for wiki is fixed and you can not change it. try it my way.

[Grumpus]

@Brummelchen - tried your suggestion and got the wiki page for "%s" not the page searched for or the keyword using "wiki." Same results as previous post.
Tried this in the search text area and the provided English Wiki search page, no difference.
I don't have the "Add Bookmarks Here" add-on.
Trying the keyword in the url takes me to the wiki search page and using %s takes me to the wiki %s page.

[Brummelchen]

not sure what you talk about.
i have set a bookmark like this and when i enter "wiki mozillazine" in address-bar wikipedia try to search for "mozillazine" which is ofc not availble
"wiki lan" exits here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAN

there is no keyword for the wiki-xml searchfile so there is nothing to set or usable.

i have defined several searches like descriven and all are functional

[Drumbrake]

Bug reported (and immediately fixed) here.

I still believe we may not be all talking about the same thing here... please see here http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches

[the-edmeister]

Well, this is indeed confusing: I *think* I'm not talking here about the same thing edmeister is talking - what I'm addressing here is the "add a keyword for this search" option that I've been using for a long time now and I assume it is what generally known as "keyword searches".

As I said, this whole "keyword" deal for searches has had me confused for many years. Near as I could and can figure, there are at least two separate features and sometimes they are interchanged when using only "keyword" and "search". And are those two related to each other? Or are they separate?

The first is what you referred to here - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches - the old "default" bookmarks that included a "keyword" feature as a standard part if Firefox to allow "searching" from the URL bar.

Then there's the Search Bar search engines which also have a "Keyword" feature or field, to allow the user to add a "keyword" or a search engine to have a "keyword" added to the XML file (I think?? - I never used it). And I guess those two allow their "keyword" to do a search from the URL bar, too.

And further confusing matters, in recent years Mozilla added a URL bar search feature. And further changes with Firefox 44.0 with regards to the Location Bar search feature.

Then with whatever features that extensions might add to "keyword" to further confuse matters regarding support questions.

[Grumpus]

Found the reason my keyword search didn't work.
Read above Drumbrake links and realized was putting the keyword in the wrong search text block, or at least that's how it appears at present.

[Brummelchen]

i dont have such quicksearch here any longer. when was it introduced? my places are really old, using since v4 without changes and flaws.

concerning minor %s and major %S - i apologize:

Difference between (small s) %s and (Capital S) %S (#fragmentid)

(small s): %s will have additional substitution replacements: # by %23, % by %25, and / by %2F, @ by %40.
(Capital S): %S will not have substitutions and allow use of C++ in a Google search, allow use of @ in an email substitution, allow use of a fragment-id in a url substitution index.html#example2, and use of a directory as in code/example2.txt.

from here
http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/firefox/kws.htm