42klines

I wanted an easier way to get to the 42klines search engine I created for UNIX programmers. So, I found out a few ways to put it on the Firefox search bar (IE7 supported as well). There are easy ways and another slightly more hands-on, pull up your sleeves, grab the tools and get to work type.

The 3-step Install
First the easy one. Mozilla provides a Firefox extension called Add to Search Bar, which can apparently add any search bar on any website to the Firefox search bar. These are the steps:

• Install the extension.
• Right click on the 42klines search bar and select the “Add to Search Bar…” option
• Change the name of the engine in the dialog box that pops up, if you like and you are done.

More details here. So that was the easy way. You can use this method to add a search bar from any web page to your browser’s search bar. If that worked for you and you are not interested in knowing anymore, skip the rest of the post.

Generate Plugin & Install
There is another way to add a search engine to your Firefox search bar. There is an online search engine plugin generator available for generating search plugins at www.searchplugins.net. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Register on the www.searchplugins.net website
2. Go to the search engine page and make a search for the word TEST.
3. When the search results appear, copy the URL in the browser’s location bar. For the 42klines search engine this is the URL.
4. Go to the plugin generator page and paste the URL in the “Search URL:” field of the form.
5. Fill up the rest of the form and create the search engine plugin.
6. You will be given the option to add the search engine plugin to the search bar. Click on the link and you are done.

This method is useful for people who provide a search engine of their own. Their search engine will now be listed among all the other search engines listed on www.searchplugins.net if they made it public. You can also grab the generated plugin’s source file in the OpenSearch XML format from your account on this site. This allows you to use the source file to provide a link on your website, which triggers a javascript, which installs the search engine to a user’s browser search bar easily from your own website.

Getting down and dirty
Now how about getting down to brass tacks and do it the hard way. Mozilla provides a way to easily add search engines from their search-engine add page. But what if the search engine you want to add is not listed among those. Or what if you have created your own search engine and want to allow people to add it to their browser’s search bar through a link on your web page? Read on.

To allow adding your search engine to a user’s Firefox browser search bar from your web page, you need to follow these two steps:

1. Create an icon for your search engine and encode it in BASE64.
2. Create a search engine descriptor file.
3. Provide a link on your website which installs the search engine through Javascript.
4. Optionally add search engine plugin auto-discovery support on your website.

Older browsers did not have the support for search bars, so you need not worry about them. Firefox 1.5 used another format called Sherlock for adding a search engine to the browser search bar. Newer browsers (Firefox 2.0+ & IE7) use a format called OpenSearch. The above links describe creating a search engine plugin using OpenSearch. OpenSearch allows a lot more than described in the links present in the above steps. Read through the documentation in case you are interested to know more.

Resources
Mozilla Mycroft Project: Search engine plugins for Firefox & IE7
Mycroft Plugin Generator: Advanced search engine plugin generator
Mycroft Search Engine Submission: Submit plugin to the Mycroft directory (OpenSearch format)
Mycroft Sherlock Submission: Mycroft page for submitting legacy Sherlock plugins
Mozilla Extensions: Create a Firefox extension if you like.
Encode data in Base64: Online tool you can use for encoding the search engine image in Base64.