Scroogle search URL filter

[Oddysey]

Siamesecat;

Actually, IE does have a default search behavior, it tries to go to autosearch.msn.com, but I've disabled that since before Day One.

The question was, does FF look at hyphens and convert them to spaces? (I know that IE doesn't do anything about hyphens, not even for the default search function.) In point of fact, what I'm after is where the "special" handling of the hyphen is taking place, FF or the Scroogle script. But it's more a matter of curiosity than anything else, I don't use FF, and I don't foresee changing away from IE anytime soon.


Oddysey

[Siamesecat]

Oddysey,

Quote:The question was, does FF look at hyphens and convert them to spaces?

No, I don't think so. I get different behaviour from separating search words with hyphens versus spaces. What Firefox seems to be doing is
looking for the presence of spaces. If the string has no spaces, with
or without hyphens, it does not kick in with its default search, and the
Proxomitron jump is used (as long as there are no periods or slashes).
If spaces are present, FF does take over. After all, a normal URL does
not contain spaces.
Google ignores hyphens, which is why the hyphen trick can be used.

[JJoe]

Oddysey Wrote:The question was, does FF look at hyphens and convert them to spaces?

It better not. The people at http://mail-archives.apache.org/ might be very lonely.

The Browser's code knows "siamese cat/" is not a URL, so the Browser sends the string to a search engine.
"siamese-cat/", however slips through and is sent to Proxomitron.

Siamesecat Wrote:Google ignores hyphens, which is why the hyphen trick can be used.

I don't think hyphens are ignored. I'd expect searching for "siamese-cat" to match "siamese cat" but not "cat siamese" or "siamese stuff cat".
Hyphens were used to provide order.

The filter removes the hyphens and replaces them with "+"s.
You lose the ability to provide order via the hyphen and negate matches but most people don't do this anyway.
Of course, there may be a character other than "-" that could be used.

http://www.google.com/search?q=siamese++-cat
searches for pages with siamese but without cat.

HTH

[Oddysey]

JJoe,

Your answer jibes with what I thought I knew already. (Whew!).

I need to reiterate what I've observed so far. Using IE, with or without Proxo's Alias filter (a prepended period), with a catchall as the last entry in the list (URL Alias List.txt) as indicated, I get these results:

w/o Proxo;
-- A single search term, IE attempts to go to a site by that name. If it doesn't exist, IE simply returns "Page cannot be displayed".
-- Multiple search terms using hyphens as separators, IE attempts to go to a site by that name, just as if it were a single term.
-- Multiple search terms using spaces as separators causes IE to attempt to search on the terms (which it can't do, on my system).

w/ Proxo;
-- A single search term takes me to Google (or Scroogle) just fine.
-- Multiple search terms using spaces as separators breaks IE...... it tries to go to its default search engine (auto.search.msn.com). I suppose I could write a re-direct filter for that behavior, but not yet.
-- Multiple search terms with hyphens works, I get to Google (or Scroogle) just fine. However, the hyphens are inclusive in the search results. If I manually adjust the search terms within the box at the top of the Scroogle results page (replacing the hyphens with spaces), I get entirely different results. From this, I must deduce that hyphens are not a good substitute for spaces.

Worse, if I use hyphens to separate the terms, I get a trailing backslash at the end of the query. (Again, this happens in both Google and Scroogle.) That doesn't seem to be affecting the search results, but I can't be 100% certain of that. In any event, it is bad form to insert characters that were not inserted by the user, and that may or may not have a direct bearing on the desired results, I'm sure you'll agree. Whether it's Proxo or IE that's doing that, I can't be sure. (The log window is no help here.)

So, is all of this worth any more effort? I dunno, but what I can tell you is that there is an even easier answer, one that is guaranteed to work, at least for IE. Whazzat?, you ask. Easy, it's an entry in your Registry. You might not know IE supports an Alias feature all on its own, sans Proxo. You merely have to type in the alias that you've previously setup, enter any parameters such as search terms, and off goes IE, merrily bringing back your query's results. In the Registry, navigate down to CurrentUser/Software/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/SearchURL, and make a new key. Set the default value to the search engine's address, and use the characters %s as the search parameter that will be filled in on the address bar. I've attached a screen capture of my entry for Scroogle.

While I desire to know more intimately what goes on underneath the hood of my browser, it's not important to me that I accomplish a mission in one particular way. So long as I can get the results I want, then I'm happy. If anyone can make the filter work without the need for hyphens, great, I'll check it out. Short of that, I'll continue to use the Registry entry with no qualms.


Oddysey

p.s. Registry key names can be any length, including one character. I just like full names for clarity. Also, what you type in the address bar is case-insensitive, google and Google yield the same results.



  scroogle_key.gif (Size: 23.05 KB / Downloads: 815)

[sbk]

years ago word1-word2 gave same google results as "word1 word2". this hasn't been true for awhile. the hyphen version gives fewer results.

in previous ff, google used to be stored in about:config as default search. i used to edit the pref string so it gave me a double quoted phrase when i context-clicked text selection. now in ff2, the context click searches the current searchplugin.

searching from addressbar i think uses "quicksearch". those had been in bookmarks.html

Wikipedia Quicksearch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s

(but i thought there should be a quicksearch letter, such as G for google, in the keyword column. none in my bkmks have a keyword)