FireFox Quickie: keywords can be "smart" as well

Building on my previous FireFox Quickie, keywords in the FireFox browser can be even more useful: by adding “%s” at in the bookmarked URL, you can make them “smart”. The “%s”will be replaced with whatever you type after the keyword.

FireFox comes with some built-in smart keywords:

  • google -> http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
  • dict -> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s
  • stock -> http://www.google.com/search?q=stocks:%s
  • wp -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s

So you can type dict quickie to find a definition of the work quickie 🙂

The easiest way to add a smart keyword is to right-click in a search field on a web page and choose “Add a Keyword for this Search.”This will pop up a dialog for you to add a bookmark name and keyword.
Now I can search for a word in the Dutch version of Wikipedia by typing “wpn” and the search term(s) in the address bar (pressing CTRL+L will move the cursor to the address bar). For example:will bring me immediately to the Dutch Wikipedia page about Ajax.

Looking at the bookmark Properties, the location that is used is http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciaal:Zoeken?search=%s

FireFox Quickie: use keywords for quick access to websites

If you use the FireFox browser, there’s an easy way to quickly browse to a website that you use often. After bookmarking the site, right-click the bookmark in your Bookmarks menu and select Properties. In the Keyword field, add a word that you want to use as shortcut for the website.
After doing that, getting to the website is as easy as typing that keyword in the address bar and pressing ENTER.

For example, I regularly have a look at the Spry Framework page of Adobe. Instead of trying to remember the URL or even selecting the bookmark, I added the keyword spry to the Properties of that bookmark:Now, the only thing I have to do is to type spry in the address bar of FireFox and press ENTER.
This will load the bookmark URL. Cool!