Archive for the ‘webbrowser’ tag
OpenSearch search providers and browsers
All the major browser vendors support the OpenSearch format (yes, this means including Microsoft IE8) for registering a search provider in your browser.
Writing a OpenSearch provider
Recently I wrote a search provider for my favorite book-buying site, Pustak.co.in:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<ShortName>Pustak.co.in</ShortName>
<Description>Pustak.co.in provider</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<Url type="text/html"
template="http://pustak.co.in/pustak/books/search?q={searchTerms}&type=book&page=1"/>
</OpenSearchDescription>
Hosting your search provider
To let people use your search provider, you need to host it in the web. For our example, let us assume that you host it here: http://yourhost/your_opensearch.xml.
The MIME type of this document can be left to its default application/xml, or can be made OpenSearch specific: application/opensearchdescription+xml.
Using JavaScript to register a provider
After deploying the OpenSearch XML in your host, we need to write a JavaScript function to register the provider with your browser:
<script type="text/javascript">
function registerYourSearchProvider(){
window.external.AddSearchProvider("http://yourhost/your_opensearch.xml");
}
</script>
This JavaScript worked with Firefox, IE8 and Google Chrome. Opera 10 was not able to understand it.
Auto-discovering OpenSearch providers
Recently when I saw my Google Chrome search providers, I saw this list:
I was surprised to see this list because there are providers that I have not added specifically. How was Google Chrome “discovering” these providers?
A look into the HTML source of one of the auto-registering search provider, I found the following info (in the <head> section):
<link rel="search"
href="/mavensearch.xml"
type="application/opensearchdescription+xml"
title="mavensearch.net" />
To let browsers auto-discover you as a search-provider, add the above in your sites!
Best WebDeveloper plugins for Firefox
I found this interesting link listing the most interesting Firefox plugins.
Google Chrome in Linux
Get it from the Early Access Release Channel.
indiWiz.com is Subhash's look on technology. Needless to say, it is highly biased with eccentric opinions. 