[Ext] Foobar

[karateno]

the addon is great. but i definitely need more suggestions from my bookmarks. why 10 at the most?
I'd like to have as many as possible on my screen without scrolling (and by the way: without a scrolling bar)!

[Str0ngwun]

the addon is great. but i definitely need more suggestions from my bookmarks. why 10 at the most?
I'd like to have as many as possible on my screen without scrolling (and by the way: without a scrolling bar)!

Go to the addon's options. This is configurable.

[Str0ngwun]

1. Is it possible to scroll search engines not by CTRL+wheel scroll, but just by wheel scroll or at least by right (or middle) click + wheel scroll? That would require only 1 hand to change the engine.
2. Disability bug: please, add the support of Insite search. This add-on lets a user to perform a search on the site you have currently opened using selected engine.
The problem is that this add-on adds it's own button after the search-bar and since your extension hides this bar - it hides this button too.
Or actually you could add something like a keyword that would indicate that a user wants to perform a search only on that site:
"@google %here candle" - search for candle with [i]google]/i] for the currently viewable site. %here or just % - would mean that user wants to perform a onsite search (e.g. instead of manually typing site:forums.mozillazine.org A nice to have feature.
3. Currently your extension is showing suggestions only from the selected search engine, even in case the user has typed a keyword of another search engine. Could you make it display the suggestions from the keyword's related search engine if the keyword was typed in? That would be awesome.
Or you actually could just teach your extension to change the currently selected search engine if you typed another search engine's keyword + space after it.
Let's illustrate it in an example: imagine that your currently selected search engine is Yahoo. But you want to perform a search in Google, not Yahoo. You have a a keyword "ggl" set for Google search. You type "ggl " and it automatically gets erased, but also it makes Google as the selected search engine.
If you think that someone might want to perform a search like "ggl something" in Yahoo - which I actually doubt - then you may make this trick work only if the user has typed a special symbol before the keyword, like "@ggl "

[zegames]

Since this bug land Bug 566489 – Enable inline autocomplete again, but make it smarter (perceived performance), foobar is messing the url bar, ie: type "mozil" will result in "mozi >> http://forums.mozillazine.org/".

Can you check it please?

Thanks

[craigpierce]

Hi All!

I'm sorry - I've forgotten to check this forum for a few weeks - been very busy.

I'm really glad to see so many posts with bugs and feature suggestions. I promise to address them all very soon - hopefully in the next week or so.

[Str0ngwun]

the "next week" almost ended, could you at least give your resolutions to my requests?

[Str0ngwun]

Craig, any news?

[craigpierce]

Ok All -

I'm sorry I'm so late on replies - I'm swamped with work, which of course means FF would update to a new major version mere months after the last one! (giving me even more work to do)

I think Foobar should be fine, once I change its compatible version in the install file - we'll see

Now, onto your questions...

[craigpierce]

The current version seems to work fine on FF 4.01.

One question, though: the prefs have an option for a URL shortening service, with a choice of TinyURL or bit.ly, but there is no indication of how to use them. Is Foobar supposed to be able to create a short URL from a long one in the URL bar? If so, how do you trigger the action?
______
Dennis

Hey there, Dennis -

Yes, sorry, I'm not sure I've documented this anywhere, but you can shorten the URL from the search icon in the address bar. Clicking on it brings up a menu with all the usual search engine management tools you'd get on the old search bar menu, as well as an option to shorten the URL of the current page and an option to create a QR code out of it as well.

Hope that helps!

[dmccunney]

The current version seems to work fine on FF 4.01.

One question, though: the prefs have an option for a URL shortening service, with a choice of TinyURL or bit.ly, but there is no indication of how to use them. Is Foobar supposed to be able to create a short URL from a long one in the URL bar? If so, how do you trigger the action?

Yes, sorry, I'm not sure I've documented this anywhere,

I couldn't find it...

but you can shorten the URL from the search icon in the address bar. Clicking on it brings up a menu with all the usual search engine management tools you'd get on the old search bar menu, as well as an option to shorten the URL of the current page and an option to create a QR code out of it as well.

Ahhhh. There it is. I use Foobar to combine search box and URL bar functionality, use Google as my search engine, and never have cause to click the Search button. Now that I have, I see the option.

Hope that helps!

It does indeed. Thank you.
______
Dennis

[craigpierce]

Suffers from poor suggestion handling. Personally I find it annoying as being more of "typing" person then "clicking":

- Always takes suggestions from selected search engine.
When I type "/b query" I expect Bing suggestions despite still having Google default selected in drop-down list.

- When using "simple" keyword search (without separator) keyword is also included into query itself "polluting" suggestions

- Cannot disable suggestions when no keywords present - sends everything I type in awesomebar to engine

- preceeding separator character is required for multi-engine search.
Cannot set separator as "," and simply use "g,b,y query" instead of ",g,b,y query"

Hi Kulmegil - some good points!

1) I had intended to serve up the correct suggestions from the very beginning. However, I'm using Firefox's built in suggestion functionality and it keys off of the default search engine. So, I can't tell it what search engine to use for the suggestions - it always uses the default. This is at the top of my TODO list, though, and hopefully I'll figure out a way to make it work!

2) Interesting - I've never tried a search without the separator - I'll look into this.

3) Correct - Foobar will always do search and history/bookmarks suggestions, based on your Foobar settings. I'll work on a way to either "turn on" or "turn off" search suggestions on the fly.

4) I'll be looking at this when I research #2 as well.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[craigpierce]

The current version seems to work fine on FF 4.01.

One question, though: the prefs have an option for a URL shortening service, with a choice of TinyURL or bit.ly, but there is no indication of how to use them. Is Foobar supposed to be able to create a short URL from a long one in the URL bar? If so, how do you trigger the action?

Yes, sorry, I'm not sure I've documented this anywhere,

I couldn't find it...

but you can shorten the URL from the search icon in the address bar. Clicking on it brings up a menu with all the usual search engine management tools you'd get on the old search bar menu, as well as an option to shorten the URL of the current page and an option to create a QR code out of it as well.

Ahhhh. There it is. I use Foobar to combine search box and URL bar functionality, use Google as my search engine, and never have cause to click the Search button. Now that I have, I see the option.

Hope that helps!

It does indeed. Thank you.
______
Dennis

Yes, I'm the same as you - I almost never click on that icon, and forget that the URL shortner is there myself

Glad you like Foobar!

[craigpierce]

the addon is great. but i definitely need more suggestions from my bookmarks. why 10 at the most?
I'd like to have as many as possible on my screen without scrolling (and by the way: without a scrolling bar)!

Hi Karateno -

I didn't realize that 10 was the limit - I just put a numerical text box there and never specified a limit

I'll take a look to see if I can increase or remove the limit.

As for the scroll bars, I'm using Firefox's built in awesome bar and suggestion popup menu, and that's how it acts by default. I'll see if I can create an option to increase the popup's size, for those who do want more suggestions in their list.

[craigpierce]

1. Is it possible to scroll search engines not by CTRL+wheel scroll, but just by wheel scroll or at least by right (or middle) click + wheel scroll? That would require only 1 hand to change the engine.
2. Disability bug: please, add the support of Insite search. This add-on lets a user to perform a search on the site you have currently opened using selected engine.
The problem is that this add-on adds it's own button after the search-bar and since your extension hides this bar - it hides this button too.
Or actually you could add something like a keyword that would indicate that a user wants to perform a search only on that site:
"@google %here candle" - search for candle with [i]google]/i] for the currently viewable site. %here or just % - would mean that user wants to perform a onsite search (e.g. instead of manually typing site:forums.mozillazine.org A nice to have feature.
3. Currently your extension is showing suggestions only from the selected search engine, even in case the user has typed a keyword of another search engine. Could you make it display the suggestions from the keyword's related search engine if the keyword was typed in? That would be awesome.
Or you actually could just teach your extension to change the currently selected search engine if you typed another search engine's keyword + space after it.
Let's illustrate it in an example: imagine that your currently selected search engine is Yahoo. But you want to perform a search in Google, not Yahoo. You have a a keyword "ggl" set for Google search. You type "ggl " and it automatically gets erased, but also it makes Google as the selected search engine.
If you think that someone might want to perform a search like "ggl something" in Yahoo - which I actually doubt - then you may make this trick work only if the user has typed a special symbol before the keyword, like "@ggl "

Hi Str0ngwun -

I'm sorry my responses are so late!

1) Yes - open the options for Foobar, go to the General tab, and uncheck the checkbox for "Must hold ctrl key when scrolling engines"

2) I will certainly take a look at this - I'm trying to be as compatible as I can be, both with Firefox's default behaviors and other addons

3) Someone else mentioned this as well - here was my response:

I had intended to serve up the correct suggestions from the very beginning. However, I'm using Firefox's built in suggestion functionality and it keys off of the default search engine. So, I can't tell it what search engine to use for the suggestions - it always uses the default. This is at the top of my TODO list, though, and hopefully I'll figure out a way to make it work!

I may be able to change the default engine as you suggested to fit the given engine keyword - however, I think I would change it right back to what it was, since the idea of specifying the engine to use on a per search basis was to circumvent the default, leaving it intact.

I'll see what I can do!

[craigpierce]

Since this bug land Bug 566489 – Enable inline autocomplete again, but make it smarter (perceived performance), foobar is messing the url bar, ie: type "mozil" will result in "mozi >> http://forums.mozillazine.org/".

Can you check it please?

Thanks

I will certainly check and see if I can increase suggestion performance - however, since I'm using as much built-in Firefox functionality as possible, we may just have to wait until Mozilla addresses this bug to see any improvement.

Thank you for alerting me to this bug - I really will see what I can do.