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

Reading RSS/XML feeds in Elinks Line Browser

This one is for console monkeys out there. Reading RSS/XML feeds in your web browser is not limited to graphical browsers alone, even our light weight console based Elinks line browser can do it with Raggle console RSS aggregator written in ruby.

Using WEBrick-based Raggle web interface allows us to use raggle from your Elinks line browser itself instead of its default console interface (see above image). The raggle web interface listens on port 2222 by default (you change it with command line parameters), point your Elinks browser to http://localhost:2222 and enjoy reading RSS/XML feeds at your leisure.

Its a good idea to run 'raggle --server' inside a screen session, once raggle is started, open a new Elinks window and give the type this URL http://localhost:2222

$ raggle --server Raggle: Loading config... Raggle: Loading feed list... Raggle: Loading theme... Raggle: Loading feed cache... Loading templates from "/home/arky/.raggle/web_ui/inc". localhost - - [03/Nov/2007:20:45:05 IST] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 681 - -> / localhost - - [03/Nov/2007:20:45:08 IST] "GET /raggle/desc HTTP/1.1" 200 2186 - -> /raggle/desc localhost - - [03/Nov/2007:20:45:08 IST] "GET /raggle/item HTTP/1.1" 200 6934 - -> /raggle/item localhost - - [03/Nov/2007:20:45:10 IST] "GET /raggle/feed HTTP/1.1" 200 72146 - -> /raggle/feed localhost - - [03/Nov/2007:20:45:12 IST] "GET /titlebar.html HTTP/1.1" 200 1001 - -> /titlebar.html localhost - - [03/Nov/2007:20:45:20 IST] "GET /inc/default.css HTTP/1.1" 200 7345 http://localhost:2222/raggle/desc -> /inc/default.css

Here you can see raggle web interface in Elinks. There are some issue and bugs with the raggle web_ui but I guess they would be solved in near future.