Add keywords to Mozilla bookmarks

Apr 18, '02 09:00:10AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

There's an easy but convoluted way to add keyword shortcuts to Mozilla's URL address bar. A convenient one to add enables searches with a search engine of your choice (Google, for example). Note that you can also set the search preference through the Prefs fields, but this method saves a keystroke or two.

First, you need to open Mozilla's preferences. Go to the Navigator -> Smart Browsing section and check the "Enable Internet Keywords" checkbox and hit OK.

Create a new bookmark (any page; it doesn't matter which one), and open the Bookmark Manager (command-B). Right- or control-click on the new bookmark and choose the "Properties" option in the popup contextual menu.

In the new window, with the "Info" tab in front, rename the bookmark as Google Search or something, and for the location, delete what's there and paste:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s&btnG=Google+Search
For the Keyword, put something that you want to use to preceed your searches; I use "?". Description doesn't matter. Now hit OK, and you should be groovin'. Go ahead and search Google using the new shortcut -- type "? search_term" and hit enter, and you should hop right to the results page for "search_term".

The more generic application of this example is the use of the keyword field. Want to quickly access macosxhints, for example? Just type an "x" in the "Keyword" field of the macosxhints bookmark property panel. Now you can get here by simply typing "x" in the address field. This trick is especially useful for sites that you'd like to get to quickly but not necessarily keep in the location bar at the top of the screen.

I hope you learned something today about Mozilla's Internet Keywords; now you can apply this in bettering your browsing experience in countless ways.

[Editor's note: The use of keywords was completely new to me ... but now that I've tried it, I've added a bunch in the last 24 hours! My personal toolbar was quite full, so now I've added one- or two-key access to a number of other sites.]

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