Streamlined searching - A howto for Firefox users
Some people are probably using the VideoSift browser search bar feature, but unfortunately it doesn't allow for advanced searches.
Others have no doubt benefited from Thylan's fantastic "Advanced search 101", although it can be a test of patience to fill out the fields for each new search.
Let's say you want to search all the Sifted, Unsifted, Discarded, and Dead Pool posts before submitting a video. This quick tutorial shows how to make firefox do the hard work for you using the keyword search feature.
Here's how to make the keyword search I described:
Step 1: Right click the search box at the top of the page, and choose "Add Keyword for this Search"
Step 2: Name it "Videosift - search all"
Step 3: Location - Paste this string into the box:
http://www.videosift.com/search?q=%s&t=v&c=&u=&s%5B%5D=s&s%5B%5D=u&s%5B%5D=d&s%5B%5D=p&o=&vmin=&vmax=&l=&n=&submit=Search
Step 4: Keyword "vs"
Step 5: Choose a location (your search is saved as a bookmark) and click OK.
That's it! To use your new search, type "vs mighty mouse" (without the quotes) into the browser address bar.
edit for clarity: To make a search using your own options (instead of mine), perform an advanced search using the settings you want, and use any search word (say, cows). Now that you're on the search results page, there will be a long URL in the address bar. Copy it and paste it into the 'Location' field like you did in Step 3. Lastly, you need to make one change to the URL you just pasted. Change the part after q= like so: .../search?q=cows... to .../search?q=%s...
One final thing while I have your attention, why not go on a Killing Spree? The new *kill power makes getting rid of duplicate submissions super easy. It'll do wonders to clean up the site!
Others have no doubt benefited from Thylan's fantastic "Advanced search 101", although it can be a test of patience to fill out the fields for each new search.
Let's say you want to search all the Sifted, Unsifted, Discarded, and Dead Pool posts before submitting a video. This quick tutorial shows how to make firefox do the hard work for you using the keyword search feature.
Here's how to make the keyword search I described:
Step 1: Right click the search box at the top of the page, and choose "Add Keyword for this Search"
Step 2: Name it "Videosift - search all"
Step 3: Location - Paste this string into the box:
http://www.videosift.com/search?q=%s&t=v&c=&u=&s%5B%5D=s&s%5B%5D=u&s%5B%5D=d&s%5B%5D=p&o=&vmin=&vmax=&l=&n=&submit=Search
Step 4: Keyword "vs"
Step 5: Choose a location (your search is saved as a bookmark) and click OK.
That's it! To use your new search, type "vs mighty mouse" (without the quotes) into the browser address bar.
edit for clarity: To make a search using your own options (instead of mine), perform an advanced search using the settings you want, and use any search word (say, cows). Now that you're on the search results page, there will be a long URL in the address bar. Copy it and paste it into the 'Location' field like you did in Step 3. Lastly, you need to make one change to the URL you just pasted. Change the part after q= like so: .../search?q=cows... to .../search?q=%s...
One final thing while I have your attention, why not go on a Killing Spree? The new *kill power makes getting rid of duplicate submissions super easy. It'll do wonders to clean up the site!
4 Comments
Arsenault185To change the search options, perform an advanced search using the settings you want, copy the URL, and change .../search?q=asdf... to .../search?q=%s...
That string becomes your entry in the Location field.
Ok that part just lost me. So exactly do you do a search for somehting besides mighty mouse?
jonnyThat's a *quality post. Nice work fissionchips.
The last bit about changing the search options is somewhat unclear, though. Can you explain that in more detail?
siftbotAwarding fissionchips with one star point for this contribution to Sift Talk - declared quality by jonny.
jonnyThis also works for Camino, but it's not quite as streamlined. Here are the instructions for doing something like this in general, but note that you will either need to be comfortable editing a raw xml file (not really that hard) or have Apple's PropertyListEditor application installed (it comes with the development tools but unfortunately is not available for separate download).
Basically, you would add an entry like this to your SearchURLList.plist file:
<key>VideoSift</key>
<string>http://www.videosift.com/search?q=%s&t=v&s%5B%5D=s&s%5B%5D=u&s%5B%5D=p&submit=Search</string>
With that entry, you can now select VideoSift from the magnifying glass menu in the search field in the toolbar, and the search terms you put in there correspond to the keyword field of the advanced search page.
I realize that's not the most complete explanation, so if any camino users out there need a hand with that, just let me know.
[edit] - removed unused search parameters from url because text was clipped instead of wrapped, hiding the very important '</string>'.
[edit2] - reverted but made small. that work? sure would be nice if I could tell while I'm editing the comment!
[edit3] - nope, small and removed unused params.
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