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Online Custom Keyword Library

A site that keeps track of your custom keywords
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Using custom keywords can be very convenient, however it can be a pain to maintain the same set of keywords across different browsers, operating systems, or computers, for example when using a computer at a computer lab or an internet cafe. This problem can be solved by linking each browser you use to an online keywords account, thus keeping keywords synchronized. For example, an account at (some domain).com has an entry for the keyword "g", and the associated url is "http://www.google.com/?q=%s". Other keywords in the account are "foo" and "bar". For the browser, a custom keyword as such is created:

URL: http://(some domain).com/?q=%s
Custom Keyword: lib

Then to search for "chair" in Google, first login to (some domain).com and type "lib g chair" in the browser's address bar. This forwards "g chair" to (some domain).com, which in turn forwards "chair" to google.com. Also "lib foo" and "lib bar" can be used.

Alternatively, a search engine for (some domain).com can be used so that when the user enters "g chair" in the search bar, it would be the same as entering "lib g chair" in the address bar. A browser plugin can improve speed and efficiency by caching the custom keywords instead of hitting the servers of (some domain).com for each search executed. The online custom keywords service can provide advanced features not yet available in most browsers, such as assigning a charset for each custom keyword for url encoding of text.

A more general idea that's harder to implement would be an online service where the user can login to access browser data including bookmarks, custom keywords, and browser preferences; any changes made to the online account is immediately reflected in the browser's interface.

rhatta, Dec 26 2005

Mozilla Custom Keywords http://www.mozilla....-user/keywords.html
a description of what custom keywords are [rhatta, Dec 26 2005]

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Description (displayed with the short name and URL.)






       sorry, I didn't understand that.. can you have another go?
neilp, Dec 28 2005
  

       it's like del.icio.us for your custom keyword searches
rhatta, Dec 28 2005
  

       [I have this feeling of deja vu.]
DrCurry, Dec 28 2005
  

       yeah, I really don't see the benefit of this. Google will email you the results of any search, or you can put them in an RSS feed. Having them semi-stored doesn't really interest me.
Firefox has some really handy saved-search extensions.
neilp, Dec 28 2005
  

       neilp: Have you used custom keywords in Firefox? You need to know what they are first (see link) before you can understand my description. Mozilla custom keywords are pretty much the same as Firefox custom keywords. Internet Explorer also has had custom keywords since at least IE 4.0, but it requires editing the registry to make it work, or the use of a separate program such as Tweak UI. This isn't about email or RSS but about being able to syncronize two browsers to use a similar configuration.
rhatta, Dec 28 2005
  

       sorry [rhatta] I didn't get it at all, but do now. Yup, it would be nice to synchronise them - any idea where they're stored in firefox ? I'm sure it'd be easy enough to sync them. And in IE you'd only need one registry hack (to get it to look at the online version of your custom keywords).
neilp, Dec 28 2005
  

       Splendid idea! I have run across this very difficulty.
humanbean, Dec 30 2005
  


 

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