Over the years I’ve written a number of search providers for Firefox and Chromium. Since most browsers now support the OpenSearch format, I only have to do this once. Here is a list of handy ones that you might want, along with the search keyword I use for fast searching in the URL bar.
| Search | Keyword | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Man pages | man | Searches local man pages. Requires local Apache server and man2html. |
| Google Images | ggi | Searches Google Images directly. |
| Google Maps | ggm | Searches Google Maps directly. |
| Pathfinder PRD | prd | Searches the Pathfinder PRD at paizo.com. For the tabletop gaming geeks in the house. |
| PHP Manual | php | Searches PHP documentation at php.net |
| Python Documentation | py | Searches local documentation in localhost/doc/python. Requires local Apache server, python-doc, libjs-underscore, and a quick fix. |
| Python 3 Documentation | py3 | Searches local documentation in localhost/doc/python3. Requires local Apache server, python3-doc, libjs-underscore, and a quick fix. |
If these don’t install automatically, save them to your Firefox profile’s “searchplugins” folder. I’ve also got one for tolaris.com. If your browser supports it, you should see it offered for download in the search area automatically.
* The search feature of local Python documentation is broken under Ubuntu 12.04. To fix it:
sudo apt-get install libjs-underscore sudo ln -s /usr/share/javascript/underscore/underscore.min.js \ /usr/share/javascript/underscore/jquery.js
You could also search the online python documentation or man pages, but those don’t necessarily represent what you have installed locally, and they require a network connection. I prefer to use local documentation when possible, so I can access them when offline.
Creating your own search provider is easy. See the Mozilla documentation. To create the base64-encoded image string, see the base64 command on Linux.
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