I love Google. And I love Google Chrome. And now you can create your own Custom Search Engines within the program and it’s EASY!
Imagine setting up a search tool for any website you regularly search and customising it to be simple and easy to use for you?! Imagine just having to type ‘Bible John 15’ in your browser bar to get it instantly?! What about doing a Wikipedia search for Emperor Tiberius just by typing ‘Wiki Tiberius’’?!
Now you can… and you can customise it for any website. Here’s a quick tutorial.
Firstly you need Google Chrome. It’s the best browser there is so get it here.
Secondly choose what site you regularly search. For this example I’m using Bible Gateway mainly because you can type in a scripture reference or a word and it’ll work it out for you and display results. Do a search and copy it. Remember what search term you used!
Thirdly open Chrome, hit the Spanner in the top right hand corner, select Options then you’ll see this:
Select Manage then you’ll see a host of options already available to you. (You can also get here by Right Clicking in the browser bar and selecting Edit Search Engines.) You can modify one that already exists or hit Add and make a new one.
Here you can create your customised searches. Create a Name, a Keyword to use in your browser (e.g. Bible or B) then paste the URL in and replace the search term with %s. Then you’re done! For BibleGateway use the following: http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%s&qs_version=31 (Version 31 is NIV).
Now check to see if it works. Hit F6 to select your browser bar, type in ‘Bible (Reference or search term) and watch Bible Gateway come to life and get what you need.
You can do it for any website you search. Just remember to replace the search term used with %s and you’re done! Here’s a few examples with thanks to ChromePlugins.org.
Google Images - http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=%s&btnG=Search+Images
Google Maps – http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=es&q=%s
I’m Feeling Lucky – http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%s
Digg.com – http://digg.com/search?s=%s
Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s
That ought to make getting what you regularly search for quicker and easier!
Readitlater.com does chrome have addon for this?
OK TP I am liking the look, feel & quickness of Chrome but am a long term Firefox guy so couple of things …
…. my blog gets all messed up on Chrome! The info below my profile gets dumped at the bottom of the blog after the last post! I can’t use a browser that trashes my blog!
… love FF extn ’smart bookmarks bar’ – crunches together bookmarks on bookmarks toolbar – nifty!
lastpass & readitlater are clunky in Chrome
SO any suggestions TP???
I’d suggest using different browsers depending on what you’re doing… kind of like the Flock idea. I used Flock until Chrome came out… not because it was social networking savvy but just new lol.
I use Chrome all the time except when I’m editing my website because it doesn’t work with FCK editor. For that I have to use IE (shudder).
Chrome is fast and with the customisable search thing it might make certain jobs quicker and easier. It helps me with sermon prep and research + facebook, WordPress and script writing (those last 2 run better with Google Gears and Gears runs seamlessly with Chrome).
Plus the Chrome homepage is unbeatable!
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=519427f65a6c92c6&hl=en – looks like a guy with the same problem with Blogger. Which is odd because Blogger is owned by Google now!!
INFACT, My friend that works for google is one of the main server techs who supports BLOGGER!.
I used to use Blogger but it’s old and clunky and hasn’t impressed me for several years now. I moved to WordPress firstly because of the impressive themes but stayed there because of the genius back end and the cleverness and layout.
Might see if Fred knows anything about how to configure Blogger with Chrome better.
Great job on reviewing Google Chrome. I’ve experiemented with it a bit becuase my desktop was having problems, and Chrome seemed much “lighter” than Internet Explorer. The search feature you mention is a great addition…very useful and a feature I hadn’t come across yet in my playing around with it.
Thanks for the info!