Google "shell" for your browser
Goosh, a "Google shell" for your browser, is a hell of a lot of fun. Add Goosh to your Firefox searchbar, and you get a bunch of cool shortcuts for powerful searching, and results presented in streamlined, ad-free form:
web (search,s,w) [keywords] google web searchLink (via /.)
lucky (l) [keywords] go directly to first result
images (image,i) [keywords] google image search
wiki (wikipedia) [keywords] wikipedia search
clear (c) clear the screen
help (man,h,?) [command] displays help text
news (n) [keywords] google news search
blogs (blog,b) [keywords] google blog search
feeds (feed,f) [keywords] google feed search
open (o) <url> open url in new window
go (g) <url> open url
more (m) get more results
in (site) <url> <keywords> search in a specific website
load <extension_url> load an extension
video (videos,v) [keywords] google video search
read (rss,r) <url> read feed of url
place (places,map,p) [address] google maps search
lang <language> change language
addengine add goosh to firefox search box
translate (trans,t) [lang1] [lang2]google translation
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While this is neat, Opera has had it as an integrated part of its browser for a while now, and it's all done through the address bar.
For once, Firefox has it built in as well.
Right click on a search field - Add a keyword for this search.
Firefox has had user-definable "Keyword Quick Searches" for a long time. I can't live without them!
To create one:
1. Bookmark a website's search results page.
2. Edit the bookmark's properties to add a keyword (which you will type into the address bar)
3. Edit the URL to replace your search term with %s (which will be replaced by whatever words you type in the address bar after)
Some of my quick searches:
* w = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s
* d = http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/%s
* g = http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
* map = http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=%s
* nf = http://www.netflix.com/Search?v1=%s
* ebay = http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=%s
* imdb = http://us.imdb.com/Find?for=%s
* rt = http://www.rottentomatoes.com/search/movie.php?searchby=movies&search=%s
* whois = http://whois.domaintools.com/%s
* yt = http://youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&search=Search
* am = http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dblended%26field-keywords%3D%s
* bgg = http://www.boardgamegeek.com/metasearch.php?searchtype=game&B1=Go&search=%s
* msdn = http://www.google.com/search?q=%s%20members%20site:msdn.microsoft.com&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky (search MSDN using Google because MSDN's own search engine sucks!)
I would love to hear about other people's favorite, custom keyword searches.
http://en.serchilo.net should be mentioned as another command line for the web. It allows the translation of any search engine / data request syntax that can be expressed in the form of a URL into shell-like commands, from google searches to currency conversions to train schedule requests. The translation table is a wiki that can be edited by everybody. It's also possible to define personalized translation tables.
Mac users can do something similar with Quicksilver. Better yet, you don't even have to be in the browser to do it. Just hit your Quicksilver key command, then type your query. I use this a dozen times a day for Google searches.
I was about to say -- Firefox lets you add a keyword for any search just by clicking in the search window. (And you can also assign a keyword to any one of your bookmarks in the "properties" view.)
I'd have thought the main advantage to having a shell would be piping the results through grep or sed or whatever for further processing. I tried piping the results of a search through the translator with no success. Pretty, yes, but not very powerful, it seems.
You can do something like this right now in any web browser (and iPhone) with search keywords for google, amazon, IMDB, Wikipedia, etc. using the beta Fancy Search.
g kittens = google for kittens
It makes a pretty good homepage and it's still improving.
http://fancyham.com/search
How about Yubnub.com? that one is even more extensive, including a lot of other sites, and their search engines.
Terminal junkies may be interested in Vimperator for Firefox. It adds lots of Vim-like shortcuts to your browser.
If there's one thing I've always said, it's that the only thing wrong with Google is that it needs to be more complicated and cumbersome. Finally, a solution!
Honestly, I don't know why anybody would want to use this, other than to prove to everybody (or themselves) how 133+ they are.
Sarf, I bet #11 browses the web in a GUI.
n00b.