Firefox Type Ahead Find for power surfing

This is another darling feature of firefox power users. The Type ahead find feature will find text link on the page much like the line browser Elinks search "/" mode. You can see this firefox type ahead find in action in the beginning of this screencast.

In newer versions of firefox browser a new search bar is placed at the bottom the screen when in search mode, this search bar is not loved by all (that includes me). But don't be put off by my preferences, this typeahead find feature will help you find and follow the weblinks thereby increasing your surfing speed.

Enable Type Ahead Find in Firefox/Iceweasel

John mentions the steps for enabling the type ahead find feature on his technipages blog.

1. Type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER.
2. Locate and double-click the entry for accessibility.typeaheadfind
3. Set it to true to enable this feature.

Happy Surfing!!

Smart URL 's in Elinks

If you have Elinks installed then it already has a bunch of smart URL’s enabled .The table below lists those in Debian’s elinks package configuration file. The Elinks Manual explains how it works and how to build your own.

Here a example, lets search for what acronym “ALSA” means with elinks.

Press g in elinks and type a: ALSA when prompted with Enter URL. The a: is the keyword and ALSA (replaced in place of %s ) is search string, elinks smart rewrite expands it to http://acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=ALSA and submits it , You will be directed to the search results at acronymfinder.com.

Elinks Smart URL’s Reference:

• a http://acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=%s
• arc http://web.archive.org/web/*/%s
• bb http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr?urltext=%s
• bb_en_fr http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr?lp=en_fr&submit=1&urltext=%s
• bb_fr_en http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr?lp=fr_en&submit=1&urltext=%s
• bug http://bugzilla.elinks.or.cz/show_bug.cgi?id=%s
• cambridge http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?searchword=%s
• cliki http://www.cliki.net/admin/search?words=%s
• cr http://www.rfc-editor.org/cgi-bin/rfcsearch.pl?searchwords=%s&format=http&abstract=abson&keywords=keyon&num=25
• czen http://www.slovnik.cz/bin/ecd?ecd_il=1&ecd_vcb=%s&ecd_trn=translate&ecd_trn_dir=1&ecd_lines=15&ecd_hptxt=0
• d http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Query=%s&Form=Dict1&Strategy=*&Database=*&submit=Submit+query
• dbug http://bugs.debian.org/%s
• dict http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s
• dmoz http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=%s
• dpkg http://packages.debian.org/%s
• draft http://www.rfc-editor.org/cgi-bin/idsearch.pl?searchwords=%s&format=http&abstract=abson&keywords=keyon&num=25
• e2 http://www.everything2.org/?node=%s
• emacs http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?search=%s
• encz http://www.slovnik.cz/bin/ecd?ecd_il=1&ecd_vcb=%s&ecd_trn=translate&ecd_trn_dir=0&ecd_lines=15&ecd_hptxt=0
• fm http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=%s
• foldoc http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?%s
• fsd http://directory.fsf.org/search/fsd-search.py?q=%s
• g http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&btnG=Google+Search
• gd http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&cat=gwd/Top
• gg http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&btnG=Google+Search
• gi http://images.google.com/images?q=%s
• gn http://news.google.com/news?q=%s
• go http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&btnG=Google+Search
• google http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
• gr http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%s
• gwhat http://www.googlism.com/?ism=%s&name=2
• gwhen http://www.googlism.com/?ism=%s&name=4
• gwhere http://www.googlism.com/?ism=%s&name=3
• gwho http://www.googlism.com/?ism=%s&name=1
• id http://www.rfc-editor.org/cgi-bin/idsearch.pl?searchwords=%s&format=http&abstract=abson&keywords=keyon&num=25
• imdb http://imdb.com/Find?%s
• lxr http://lxr.linux.no/ident?i=%s
• lyrics http://music.lycos.com/lyrics/results.asp?QT=L&QW=%s
• mw http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=%s
• mwt http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/thesaurus?book=Thesaurus&va=%s
• onelook http://onelook.com/?w=%s&ls=a
• py http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/pyhelp.cgi?keyword=%s&version=current
• pydev http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/pyhelp.cgi?keyword=%s&version=devel
• pyvault http://py.vaults.ca/apyllo.py?find=%s
• rfc http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc%s.txt
• rfcid http://www.rfc-editor.org/cgi-bin/idsearch.pl?searchwords=%s&format=http&abstract=abson&keywords=keyon&num=25
• rfcs http://www.rfc-editor.org/cgi-bin/rfcsearch.pl?searchwords=%s&format=http&abstract=abson&keywords=keyon&num=25
• savannah http://savannah.nongnu.org/search/?words=%s&type_of_search=soft&exact=1
• sd http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=%s
• sdc http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=%s&op=comments
• sdj http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=%s&op=journals
• sdp http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=%s&op=polls
• sdu http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=%s&op=users
• sf http://sourceforge.net/search/?q=%s
• sfp http://sourceforge.net/projects/%s
• thes http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=%s
• whatis http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=%s
• wiki http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=%s
• wn http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn1.7.1?stage=1&word=%s