Speed Up Your Search with Top Bookmarklets

JDB says on August 17th, 2006 at 11:04 am

You can cut down some of those steps by highlighting the word (or double-clicking on it sometimes), then right-clicking the highlight and select ‘Search Web “”‘. It will search by that phrase on your set default search engine.

Mariusz says on August 17th, 2006 at 11:08 am

Well, who uses search-bar anyway? Since Firefox 1.5 there’s that thing called Quicksearch — you simply type ‘google query’ (I changed it to ‘g query’ for quicker typing) and there ya go.
You can also easily add your searches using Bookmarks Manager

kyle says on August 17th, 2006 at 11:43 am

The Context Search extension will let you right click and Search Web For [highlighted word]. there are tons of sites you can search with (just search for mycroft search plugins).

Lauch says on August 17th, 2006 at 12:57 pm

You could also highlight the word/words with your mouse, ctrl-c to copy the text, alt-d to put you into the address toolbar then tab over to the search box. Or, most browsers will search for you if you type the word into three address bar, so you can even skip the tab.

But really, bookmarklets are neat, but if you’re that lazy, you might as well turn on your speech to text interpreter.

MicrowaveSafe says on August 17th, 2006 at 2:56 pm

Rather than using Alt-D and tabbing you can just use the hotkey of Ctrl/Cmd + K to take you straight to the search box. Ctrl + Up/Down will switch between the different search options when you are in the box and hit enter to search. I find this faster personally because I don’t have to use the mouse at all. I also keep my search box very limited and remove Yahoo and others I don’t use that come default.

Paul says on August 17th, 2006 at 4:47 pm

I use quicksearch keywords, and the SmartSearch extension, which allows [highlight text] -> [right click] -> [Search Using] -> quicksearch bookmark. Or as Mariusz says “g search phrase” in the address bar (but this feature has been in firefox since at least 1.0!)

BruceMagnus says on August 17th, 2006 at 7:19 pm

I use the hyperwords extension. You highlight a word and Alt+LeftClick(you can change this in preferences) it and it brings up a menu with a bunch of different search categories(shop, reference, normal seach, map, etc) on what to use to search for the word/phrase and when you choose the search engine, a new tab(you can change this too) appears with the search results. It also has some other options like Go to URL, copy, Skype, translate, email, tag, blog, etc. The only thing I dont like about it is that you can’t manually add your own searches although I usually find their selection sufficient. Adding as many bookmarklets as there are searches in hyperwords would definitely clog up your toolbars.

atluii says on August 18th, 2006 at 12:42 am

I’ve been using this: A bunch of keyword searches. It’s a blog that lists a bunch of the searchable urls for say groups, imdb, amazon, etc. Search for a book? Hit ctrl/cmd-l, z bookname. Search for a movie? ctrl/cmd-l, i movie. I only need a few of these to cover my searching needs.

PCL says on August 18th, 2006 at 12:58 am

I use firefox DragdeGo. Just need to highlight a word and drag to left (or right/up/down, configurable) and it will search for the highlight word using your current search engine.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2918/

milo says on August 20th, 2006 at 7:02 am

using opera 9, there you can ad your own queries and searchengines with a rightclick.

splib says on August 26th, 2006 at 12:56 am

select “plugin” in searchbar. (if necessary)
select text.
drag to searchbar.
3 steps.
i use thesaurus a lot, so it’s the default searchplugin in user.js Therefore eliminate step #1, leaving only two steps.

Still, i’d like to try the FF extension that creates new toolbar buttons, so i could assign the most used bookmarklets.
or add those bookmarklets to proxomitron toolbar.

problem remains: without an extension, the search opens in the same tab. (except only the first drag does this. Later drags seem to open new tabs. I’m not sure if this occurs only in the firefox profile in which I most use thesaurus.)

presumbly could use bookmarklet when preferred to open search result in new tab.

or when using searchbar, shift+Enter key (or Shift while drag) to force open (new tab or window or same tab) as desired.