What do you see when you open your browser?
Is it a blank page? (Nothing is faster!) Or is it a convenience page? (google.com?)
I open a new browser tab/window in two circumstances:
- I want to search something
- I want to open a bookmark
For problem #1, I used yubnub for a long time. Yubnub is supposed to be “a (social) command line for the web”, but to me the only interesting aspect is user-contributed search engine shortcuts. You want to use Google image: “gim hajime no ippo”. You want to use Google map: “gmap olympic stadium, montreal”. But it goes further, yubnub provides direct access to the search engines of specialized sites: amazon (.com/.ca), bestbuy, tigerdirect, apple trailers, newegg, the pirate bay … the list goes on and on. (There’s a command to find a yubnub command: ls) The idea of having to first go to a website and THEN do a search seems so backward to me … so 2001.
For problem #2, if you don’t want to go insane and have many computers, you have to look into synchronizing your bookmarks. What a pain! In fact, yubnub served as a kind of bookmark for sites I would do searches on … but there is still a list of other sites which don’t fit that pattern.
Here’s my solution to all these problems: home.acidfog.com.
Pretty simple, no?
Here’s the breakdown:
- the logo: thematic
- the search field
- JavaScript-hijacked submit button
- JavaScript-hijacked “show links” anchor
When the page loads, the focus is placed on the search field automatically. On submit, it looks up in my JavaScript yubnub clone. Clicking on “links” makes a list of bookmarks appear. Finally, the page captures the “ESC” key and also shows the bookmarks. (vim habits)
I captured the essence of yubnub and distilled it into my own JavaScript code. This allowed me to completely stop using yubnub which was sometimes slow and sometimes down. Also, I’m not too keen on having yet another trace of EVERYTHING I’m searching appearing in the yubnub’s log files.
Another downside of using yubnub is that you have to agree with the shortcut command picked by the community. Since it’s my code, I can pick what I want.
Feel free to steal and extend on the general idea here.
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