Electric Ants HQ

Javascript code allows to 'abuse' the search engine feature to turn the adress field into a versatile commandline!

Since the new feature "Create search..." in Opera 9, we can easily integrate almost any search engine in Opera. Old-school ini hackers, however, should know that search engines can do much more than just replicating search fields on webpages. Javascript code allows to 'abuse' the search engine feature to turn the adress field into a versatile commandline. Translate the active page, start playing a web radio, combine different results in one page, whatever you like - if someone is skilled enough to hack a solution.
Now, as search engines can be created more easily, anyone can take advantage of these hacker tricks!
In this article, I present some special search engines that I was able to figure out, without being a javascript expert. Much of this has already been available as custom buttons or similar in the Opera wiki. While adapting the code of these buttons as search engines, I also tried to make it more readable. With the more comfortable search editing, it is no longer necessary to squeeze everything in one line, which is a blessing for those who want to adapt the code for their own purpose.
I know these engines are far from perfect - my primary intention is to make more people think about the possibilities, and create their own engines - so, any further contributions and testing feedback are welcome! Maybe it would even be more useful if this page was a wiki..

So far, the article contains search engines for
- Google search reduced to the site/domain/folder you are currently visiting
- Translation of the active page using babelfish (type "translate en fr")
- Simultaneous search in different engines, using frames or different pages.
- Start a last.fm tag radio (type "lastfm experimental" or "lstfm rock")




Google Site Search (for active page or special sites)

Copy the link adress or js code, and paste as search adress in a newly created search.

Java documentation (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0) - "j"

Opera forums site search (my.opera.com/community/forums) - "of"
Opera domain search (opera.com) - "od"
Opera Wiki search (operawiki.info) - "ow"

Site search on active page - "s"

javascript:(
    function() {
        open(
            "http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=%s    site:"
            + window.location.hostname
            + "&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8"
        );
    }
)()

Domain search on active page - "d"

javascript:(
    function() {
        open(
            "http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=%s    site:"
            +window.location.hostname.match(/%5b^%5c.%5d+%5c.%5cw{2,4}$/)
            +"&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8"
        );
    }
)()

Folder search on active page - "f"

javascript:(
    function() {
        var splitarray=document.location.href.split('/');
        splitarray.pop();
        open(
            "http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=%s    site:"
            + splitarray.join('/')
            + "&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8"
        );
    }
)()

Translate active page with Babelfish

The following search will translate the active page between the languages of your choice, using the babelfish translation tool. With this search installed, you can visit the website of your choice, type "t en fr" to get the french version (if t is the search nickname).
Just add a custom search with the following code:

javascript:(
    function() {
        open(
            "http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp="
            +'%s'.split('+').join('_')
            +"&url="
            +document.location.href
        );
    }
)()

Start playing a last.fm tag radio

No guarantees - this needs some testing!

javascript:(
    function() {
        var s = escape("%s");
        radioPopup=window.open(
            "http://www.lastfm.de/webclient/popup/?radioURL=lastfm://globaltags/" + s,
            "flashRadioPopup",
            "toolbar=no, location=no, directories=no, status=no,menubar=no, scrollbars=no, resizable=no, width=375, height= 145"
        );
        radioPopup.moveTo(200,200);
        radioPopup.focus();
    }
)()

Some tags I know are electronic, rock, experimental .. or just have a look on the last.fm website.



Simultaneous Searches - Combining Search Engines

The following code will open one new tab for google, one for yahoo and one for altavista search, all with the same search arguments. However, one of them might be blocked by the popup blocker!!

javascript:(
    function() {
        var s=escape("%s");
        document.location.href="http://www.yahoo.com/r/sx/*-http://search.yahoo.com/search?p="+s+"&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8";
        open("http://www.google.com/search?q="+s+"&sourceid=opera&num=%i&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8");
        open("http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q="+s+"&kgs=1&kls=0");
    }
)()

The same using frames

javascript:(
    function() {
        var s = escape("%s");
        var t = "Multisearch - "+s;
        var yahoo  = "http://www.yahoo.com/r/sx/*-http://search.yahoo.com/search?p="+s+"&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8";
        var google = "http://www.google.com/search?q="+s+"&sourceid=opera&num=%i&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8";
        var googlemaps = "http://maps.google.de/maps?f=q&hl=de&q="+s+"&btnG=Adressen+suchen";
        var googleimages = "http://images.google.com/images?hl=de&q="+s+"&btnG=Bilder-Suche";
        document.write(
            "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd'><html><head><title>"
            + t
            + "</title></head><frameset rows='50%,50%' cols='50%, 50%'><frame src='"
            + google
            + "'><frame src='"
            + yahoo
            + "'><frame src='"
            + googlemaps
            + "'><frame src='"
            + googleimages
            + "'></frameset></html>"
        );
    }
)()

Of course, any combinations of searches are imaginable! But how do you
customize this code ?


You need to look for the lines where the single search engine's adress is specified. Then you need to consider how the different pieces of strings are put into variables!

A usual google search looks like that:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&sourceid=opera&num=%i&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

(it depends on how it is created, this one is Opera's predefined 'g' search)


The important thing is the %s, this is the place where the user search string is inserted into the code.

In my code, I first excape the user search string into a variable (var s = escape("%s");), then replace the %s with a "+s+" (reading the string from the variable). This is necessary, because you can escape the %s only once (and here we need to reuse it for different engines).

This means, if you change one of the search engines, you need to find the %s and replace it with "+s+"


In the second piece of code (the one with frames), I first store the engines' adresses in variables yahoo, google, googlemaps and googleimages, and later use these variables. So, if you want to change one of the engines, you should ideally do this in the place where the variable is set.


How exactly does this code work?

Usually the search engines don't use javascript. This means, the naked search url becomes your search code.

With javascript, you need to pack the search url into a command, with quotes.

Here, "document.location.href=...;" will open the search in the same tab, while "open(...);" will open a new tab with the search. The lower example (using frames) uses the command "document.write(...)" to create a page with different frames.

All of these things I extracted from code in the operawiki and other resources. My own js and web programming skills are quite low. (writing a widget will be hard, I guess)



Create your own Searches with predefined Extra Arguments

You can create your own google site search by taking the Opera domain search url for instance, and replacing the "opera.com" by the domain adress of your choice.

Btw, the "%s" in the search url is a placeholder for what you type after the nickname.

More general,
- create a search from the search field of your choice.
- edit this search, and replace the "%s" with "%s arg0 arg1 arg2 ..", where "argX" is the extra argument of your choice (like "site:opera.com"). The extra spaces between "%s" and the arguments just make your search look better.



My favourite conventional custom searches

All you need to do is
- Choose a search below, and copy the link adress
- create a new search (Tools > Preferences > Search > Add..)
- paste the search string in the adress field (Details > Adress)
- Choose a name and nickname as you like. Below you see the nicknames that I use at home. Sometimes it may be necessary to change the nicknames of some of the default search engines.

LEO Deutsch-Englisches Wörterbuch - "leo"
Wikipedia (the german one) - "w" or "wiki"