Guided tour
From Searchbastard
Before joining me on this guided tour, I recommend that you read the Quick Introduction. This will give you a basic understanding of the purpose and functionality of the Searchbastard addon.
Installing
Go to Install, and follow the instructions.
Adding groups and engines
Installing requires restart. After restart, you should see an empty searchbar with only the special folder: "Unassigned". This folder currently contains all your search engines, as you haven't assigned any engines to any groups yet. But hey, lets do that. Click on the searchbastard icon to open Settings.
To start adding groups to the searchbar, click on "Searchbar" in the left pane. I will get back to "Toolbox", but I can reveal that it is much like the Searchbar, but it can be placed where you want in the toolbox. So: You actually have two "searchbars" (I know, "Toolbox" and "Searchbar" is probably not the best names. Other suggestions are welcome!)
Clicking "Searchbar" will give you the Searchbar properties in the right pane, as shown on the screenshot above. Here you can set some properties of the bar, but most importantly: You can create new groups. Simply click "Create Group", to create a new group. Clicking it opens a dialog, asking for a name. Lets call it "fav" (short for "favourites").
Now, click on "fav" in the left pane to start adding engines to the group.
Clicking on "fav" causes the right pane to change to "Group Properties". This allows you to set Group name, alias, folder type and primary multisearch. But most importantly: It allows you to add engines to your new group. The "Available Engines" section shows a list of engines that you have installed. To add an engine to the "fav" group, simply doubleclick on the row.
Now add a couple of engines to "fav". To save your changes, click "Ok" (Clicking "Cancel" will discard all your changes).
The first search
Now that you created a group, your searchbar should look something like this:
Now, write something in the searchfield (the one next to the Searchbastard icon). As this IS your first Searchbastard search, feel free to take your time to linger in the moment. For what is life, if not a constant search for what cannot be found?... Just kidding... Now, click on the first engine icon to do the search. Ta-dahh. Didn't find your answer? It only takes one click to try searching for the same term on one of the other engines that you added.
Ctrl-clicking opens the search in a new tab, Shift-clicking opens it in a new window and Ctrl+Shift-clicking opens it in the sidebar.
Multisearch (frames)
To search all the "fav" engines in one go, click on "fav" in the searchbox. The result might look something like this:
This is a framed multisearch. What you see is three frames. Framed multisearch is not very useful with ordinary search engines, because those pages are usually designed to fit a whole page. The picture however changes with Searchbastard engines.
You can change the proportions of the frames, by dragging the resizers. The sizes persists - that is: Next time you make a multisearch, the frames will have the sizes that you set the last time. Actually, you can customize the layout in great detail, by clicking "Edit layout" in the bottom right corner. See Customizing the layout of a multisearch (frames) for more on that.
Multisearch (tabs)
There are currently two kinds of multisearch. You just saw "Multisearch (frames)", and you are about to see "Multisearch (tabs)". Right-click on "fav", and select "Multisearch (tabs)". You should see something like this:
Yes, what you have is a tab-panel. So, it doesn't open new tabs - it opens a new tabpanel in the current tab. Its also pretty neat, so I had a hard time deciding which to make the default. The tab multisearch is best when the results takes up a lot of space, like wikipedia. With Searchbastard engines, you however seldom need the extra space that the tabbed multisearch provides.
If you prefer the tabbed multisearch, you can set it as default, by setting "Primary multisearch" to "multisearch-tabs" in General Settings.
Alias
Engines and groups can have aliases, which can be used in two different ways, to perform a search. To assign an alias to the an engine, right-click on the engine icon, and select "Set alias(es)". I generally use something short, lowercase, that makes sence to me. For example "w" for wikipedia, "g" for google and "ud" for Urban Dictionary. Now create an alias for one of the engines, and set it to "test".
Lets also create a group alias. Right-click on "fav", select "Set alias(es)" and set it to "fav".
Smart keyword search
In the address bar (aka "location bar", aka "URL bar"), type "test human" and hit enter. Grats, you just performed a "Smart keyword search". Simple, but powerful. Smart keyword search is not a Searchbastard invention. It already exists in firefox. But note one thing: The search field now says "human". So, if Wikipedia doesn't tell you what you wanted to know about being human, you can quickly try another engine.
Lets try a group search. Press Ctrl + L to give focus to the address bar ("L" for "Location bar"). type "fav human", press enter, and discover that "Smart keyword search" also works for groups.
LookItUp (aka Selection search)
Uuh, here comes the best part... Select this word: whale. (doubleclick on "whale"). Now, type "test". This should open the sidebar, with a search for "whale" on the engine you gave the "test" alias. Now doubleclick on this word: buttercake. And select the next two words (click and drag): thats great. Now type "fav". And then type "test". Get the point? Hit Esc to close the sidebar.
Installing Searchbastard engines
I have mentioned the Searchbastard engines a couple of times now. To see the beast, we need to install first: Right-click the Searchbastard icon, and select "Find new searchbastard engines"
A two-pane page opens:
(The right panel is initially empty)
- Provider: Currently there is only rosell.dk. Its not too hard to set up a provider, and its my hope that someone will create a portal for Searchbastard engines, like searchengines on mycroft, or userscripts.org for greasemonkey scripts.
- Language: This refers to the language used in the search options and visual options.
- Tags: Engines can be tagged. Select a tag to filter the list by that tag
You can test an engine before installing. Simply doubleclick the engine, and a test search will be opened in the right pane.
Each searchbastard engine has an associated webpage. Select an engine, and click "Webpage" in order to open it. If you have questions or requests regarding an engine, you can post comments on that page.
To install, select one or more engines, and press the "Install" button. If installed succesfully, the engine will be available in the "Available engines" list in Settings.
I can recommend Wikipedia, Chambers and Google images
Now, install "Google translate", it will be used in the next example. Notice that it appears as the last item on the searchbar. New engines are automatically added to the searchbar when installed (This can be changed in General Settings).
Searchbastard Engine Search
Lets try the newly installed Searchbastard engine: "Google Translate". Enter "humanos" in the searchfield and simply click the icon of the new engine. The result:
One word: "human". Above the translation, you see what is called the "Searchbastard engine header". Its there on all Searchbastard engine search results. The content of the header varies, though.
From left:
- An icon representing the search engine
- A search field. Displays the search terms. Change the word, and press enter to perform a new search.
- Search options. In this case there is three: "Source", "Target" and "Switch". The first two are "select" options, the last is a "checkbox" option. (Hovering over "Spanish" reveals that the search option is called "Source"). Changing an option immidiately triggers a new search.
- Visual options. "Cleanup" is a visual option defined by this search engine (and indeed most Searchbastard engines). There may also be several visual options. Search options are displayed in the left side, visual options are displayed in the right side
- Break out icon. This appears, when the search result is inside a multisearch (tab or frame), or in the sidebar. Click it to open the search result in a new tab.
Configuring Searchbastard engines
Open Settings. Create a group called "Fre-Eng", set the group alias to "fe", and add "Google Translate" to it. Select the engine.
Now, this "Fre-Eng" group is obviously designated French to English translation tools. So, lets set "Source" to "French", and leave "Target" at "English". Change the "Custom name" to "Google Translation (Fre-Eng)", and alias to, ehm.. "gfe" (for Google French-English).
Now, create a group called "Eng-Fre", set the group alias to "ef", and add "Google Translate" to it. This time, set "Source" to "English", and "Target" to "French", - and alias to "gef".
So, we now have two different configurations of the same engine. This illustrates the difference between an engine and an "engine configuration". You actually don't add engines to a group - you add engine configurations. This term is however too cumbersome, so I resort to inaccurately call it all "engines". But note the power of being able to use several configurations of the same engine.
Well, now we're at it - should we look at the rest of the options?
- Label: The label before the option. If empty, no label is shown. The label could for example have been "Source" for the "Source" option. The engine author however thought that it would not be neccesary, as the user probably would figure this out without the label.
- Default value: We've been there... It also works when the option is hidden.
- Show: Should the option be displayed in the Searchengine header?
- Expand/Contract: On the screenshot above, the first three options are "contracted", and the last option (Cleanup) is "expanded". When an option is "expanded", you can set it up differently depending on the type of container where the results reside. The container can either be "page", "sidebar", or "frame". Basically, it tells you something about how much space there is. In the sidebar and in a frame, there is probably not very much horizontal space (not much room for options and labels). In a frame, you probably want maximum cleaning, because there is neither much horizontal, nor much vertical space. As you can see, the cleanup option has been set up accordingly to these conciderations. The defaults are generally set up wisely, but they don't take your preferences into account. If you find that there is an option that you never use, you should hide it, and gain some space.
- Custom Css: Optionally apply css to the searchresult (ie "font-size:200%!important}
- Custom Javascript: Optionally apply javascript to the searchresult
Uninstalling engines
To uninstall a search engine, weather its a searchbastard engine, or a firefox engine, right-click on the engine in Available engines, and select "uninstall". Alternatively, you can click "uninstall" on the properties for an added engine.
Creating your own Searchbastard engines
Creating engines is not too complicated. I recommend that you start by looking at the current engines, such as Wikipedia and Google Images. And then look at "Example" (you can get it at the rosell provider). The sourcecode of the "Example" engine contains detailed information about most tags. If you would like your engine to be published on the rosell provider, send me an email (searchbastard [at] this domain)
The Toolbox
Go to settings, create a group called "misc", and set the folder type to "Just icons". Add a couple of engines. Click ok. In the top right of you browser, you should now see the engines:
The toolbox "searchbar" does look and behave different than the searchbar, but this is just because it is has a different default setup. You can change this in toolbox properties.
First thing to notice is that there is no search field. Well, the toolbox is set up to use the standard firefox search field. Press ctrl+K to give focus to the searchfield, enter something, and then click on an engine icon - Yes, it works.
So... The Toolbox is set up to be a very discrete fellow. Maybe you already have lots of noisy toolbars, and just want your favourite couple of engines to be accessible... Well then, you can disable the "Searchbar", and just use the Toolbox in this silent mode. - And then maybe sometimes enable the searchbar, when need arises.
You can place the toolbox "searchbar" anywhere in the toolbox. Did I mention that? Right-click on the "Stop" button, and select "Configure". Now, drag the "Searchbastard" thingie to where you want. One possible usage is to create an extra searchbar. If you for example work in the translating business, translating english texts into danish, you might want to have one toolbar for danish, and one for english. To add a new toolbar, click "Add new toolbar" in the "Configure toolbar" popup. And then drag the searchbastard thingie to the new bar.
Other features
- You can arrange the engines on the searchbar, using drag and drop (you can also drag between the searchbar and the toolbox)
- You can perform a search by dragging text to an engine icon / group
- You can toggle major features by right-clicking the searchbastard icon in the status bar
- You can do a lot of customizing in Settings.
- You can for example remap all events. (You could for example decide that ctrl + right-clicking on a multisearch button should open a tabbed multisearch in current tab)
See also
The Searchbar - For a complete feature description of the Searchbar
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