Firefox Code Project Search Bar

• Install from Mozilla.org
• Download source code - 10.8 Kb

Contents

• Introduction
• System requirements
• SearchBar features
  • Quick searching
  • Code Project site links
  • The SearchBar main menu
  • SearchBar options
• Installing the SearchBar
• Uninstalling the SearchBar
• Acknowledgements
• Source code
• Revision history

Introduction

The Firefox Code Project SearchBar is a direct port of the IE Code Project SearchBar to the Firefox browser. It gives you almost all the same features - you can still do searches at any time, from any web page... but now you have the option of opening search results in a new tab, thanks to Firefox.

• Firefox Code Project SearchBar Home Page

Here's what it looks like:

System requirements

Firefox 1.0 or later, tested on 1.0.3 and 1.0.4.

SearchBar features

Quick searching

You can search the same way as the IE toolbar does - you can just click the button and search the article text. Alternatively, you can click the little arrow on the right hand side of the button, and choose from a few different options.

You'll notice a new option in the 0.3 version of the toolbar, a Google search option. This search option uses Google to search CodeProject, which is much easier than always typing the site: www.codeproject.com as a keyword into Google. And yes, I know about quick searches in Firefox.)

Firefox natively supports drag and drop searching, so you can use that with this toolbar as well.

Code Project site links

You can click the Site Links button to see a menu of shortcuts to various areas of the site. This is an almost direct copy of the IE toolbar, with the same useful features. The only major feature that is missing right now is the Code Project Web Service reader, which I have not had the time to add.

The SearchBar main menu

Click the down arrow next to the CodeProject button to see the control menu:

You can clear the current search history or open the Options page via this menu. You can also more easily get access to the latest articles page, which I personally tend to read a lot.

SearchBar options

Click Options to open the SearchBar options dialog. The options are fairly self-explanatory.

The new option in Version 0.3: Open Site Links in new tab. The default behavior has been changed to not open site links in a new tab even if you have the search using a new tab. This makes it a little easier to navigate the way you'd like.

Installing the SearchBar

If you are using the Firefox browser, you can go to the homepage link and you will see a link similar to this:

Click the Install Now link to install the toolbar, and Firefox will do the rest. You will have to restart your browser in order to view the toolbar.

Uninstalling the SearchBar

You can uninstall, or even just disable the SearchBar using the Firefox Extensions manager.

Acknowledgements

This SearchBar was written to directly model the original IE version by Michael Dunn.

Here's a link to the greatest XUL/Firefox toolbar tutorial that you could ever hope for: Born Geek.

Source code

I've included the source code for the current version of this toolbar. I'm not going to write a full article to explain how it works, since the BornGeek tutorial linked above is much better than I could write. Download the source code at the top of the page, and use the instructions on BornGeek to compile it into an extension that you can install.

Revision history

• v0.2 - First version submitted to Code Project, lacking a few features still.
• v0.3 - New features: Google CodeProject search, context menu.