Setting up a Google web search Trigger
I love Quicksilver for its fantastic idea and its beautiful implementation. Here I have detailed the method of adding a web search trigger. If you dont have Quicksilver, you can get it here. I just noticed that the latest version of Quicksilver had this to say.
Setting up a Google web search Trigger
- Go to www.google.com and enter the charatcters “***” ( 3 stars that is ) into the search box and hit enter. When google has finished searching, remember to copy the URL from the browsers address bar and paste it into a document, say Textedit. Now add the terms ” qss- ” to the front of the url so that it becomes a bookmark. For example if the url at the end of the search was “http://www.google.com” then the bookmark would be “qss-http://www.google.com”
- Open the Quicksilver preferences window.
- Select triggers so that you are presented with the trigger preferences pane.
Click on the small “+” near the bottom to add a new trigger.
- when the window drops down just paste (command+V) the copied bookmark into the first pane.
- You will see that the second pane automatically becomes “search for”. Also note how the third pane has a text icon in the picture above.
(Sometimes when you set up this trigger you may find that there is some text in the third pane, as shown in the picture below,in which case the trigger will not work.
In such cases, we have to get rid of the text, so close all quicksilver windows and invoke the Quicksilver bezel, then paste (command+V) the earlier copied bookmark into the first pane. If there was text in the third pane while setting up the trigger then quicksilver displays the text as shown below in the third pane.
Now tab over to the third pane and go into text mode by typing “.” (A full stop that is) and delete the text in the third pane and then press Return (Very important). Then repeat the steps of setting up a trigger from the preferences pane as described above. You will find that there will not be any text in the third pane, but only a text icon or sometimes nothing at all, thats allright. Now that we have got rid of the text, follow the steps detailed below)
- Press Return (DO NOT TAB into any other pane or do anything else as you will not get it right. Do not even click on anything else)
- Now select the trigger from the menu and and assign a shortcut (F5 for example) for it by double clicking next to the key icon. Close the quiclsilver window.
- Press the key shortcut and see the google search shortcut come to life!
- Remember you can do the same thing with other sites like yahoo, MSN , ebay , etc. For more such URL’s, look at the web search list.
You can find more resources here, here, here and here!
Technorati Tags: Apple, cool, link, Design, Quicksilver, search, web
Real good…didnt know that quicksilver had this feature… web searches re sure going to get easier now..
Madhu
January 7, 2006 at 12:04 pm
I just downloaded Quicksilver and finding things like this just amazes me. I feel like I’ve been wasting so much time on so many little things. Hoorah for efficiency!
Conor
January 22, 2006 at 7:48 am
This works for the Adium plugin as well, though you’ll have to hit period every time you call the trigger since “IM Item…” expects an object.
Ben Jackson
May 3, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Is there any way to do the web search in the opposite order — that is, enter some text, then select “Google Query” or whatever? Oftentimes I already have the text before I figure out that I’d like to a particular search with it…
mithras
July 21, 2006 at 2:02 am
mithras,
enter your search term, hit tab, type “find with”, hit tab, type “google”
It’s learned it so well for me that I just hit tab, f, tab, g, enter. And thanks to this tip, Ctrl-Alt-Cmd-G
Mark Jaquith
October 19, 2006 at 10:45 am
These instructions only work if you have installed the “Web Search Module” plug-in. At first, I didn’t have that installed and QS didn’t behave as described above. Once I installed it, everything worked as described.
Steven Chanin
October 31, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Awsomeness. I was wondering if I could set up Google searches within Quicksilver, and then I came across this page.
Many thanks!
E.
Dysantic
January 25, 2007 at 9:40 pm
i tried entering this:
qss-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=***&go=Go
but no joy.
above qss.. is in the “Setting”
Double clicking on Commands (yellow) > Action field shows “Open URL”
Target Field is blank
yet when i execute the command Action instead of “Open URL” is “Assign Abbreviation..” for no obvious reason.
eh?
Assign Abbreviation only shows up when i execute my trigger. All the other configurations display “Open URL”
Any tips? Thanks,
-befuddled
enki
January 31, 2007 at 9:35 pm
update,
I added action “Search For”..but it doesn’t appear in any “Action” feild. Any tips
enki
February 1, 2007 at 10:56 pm
[...] can also add your own search engines, but chances are that it’s already [...]
satisfy all your searching needs with Quicksilver « Qism
May 12, 2007 at 1:57 pm
This trick worked under Tiger and the old Quicksilver version, but it doesn’t anymore under Leopard and Quicksilver b3851
ute
November 16, 2007 at 5:01 pm
thankyou – for the most clear and imformative post regarding this subject – please add DIGG to this page – it would help a LOT of people with quicksilver.
well done
ben
ben burling
November 19, 2007 at 9:23 pm
“This trick worked under Tiger and the old Quicksilver version, but it doesn’t anymore under Leopard and Quicksilver b3851″
instead, you can go to the catalog prefs, choose new ‘web search list’ from the action menu and add the “qss-address” to the list.
unis
November 28, 2007 at 6:49 pm
An easier way to clear out the third pane is when defining the trigger, go to the third pane, do NOT go into text mode and type cmd-x to “cut” whatever is there out.
Tips on this, web searches, triggers, and many more in the in progress user manual
hmelman
January 10, 2008 at 4:10 pm
another good tip. Use the Current Selection proxy object (have advanced features enabled) in place of the text and assign a trigger. Now you can highlight text in any app and hit a keystroke to search for it in a web page. I have such triggers for google, imdb, image, amazon and wikipedia searches and use them all the time.
hmelman
January 10, 2008 at 4:22 pm
[...] search google (i’m using ctrl-opt-cmd-G) [...]
quicksilver & qurl
May 30, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Hello!,
name
September 1, 2008 at 6:39 am
[...] http://lifehacker.com/software/quicksilver/hack-attack-a-beginners-guide-to-quicksilver-247129.php [...]
Quicksilver « Ich und Mac
November 6, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I added this trigger but when i open the quick silver bezel it doesnt appear in there, if i press fn-F7 it will open safari and google homepage, is this how it is supposed to work?
I thought this trigger would add a google search to the bezel
Scott
December 13, 2008 at 8:40 pm
[...] displayed in large type. I also love the ability to launch a Google search from within QuickSilver (see instructios here). Finally, I commonly use QuickSilver to navigate my computer’s directories. So I bring up [...]
Larry Ullman’s Blog » QuickSilver: So Worth Your Time!
December 17, 2008 at 2:07 am
Thanks for the comment about needing the web search module, couldn’t figure out why things weren’t acting the same.
tiuk
February 16, 2009 at 7:58 am
This might be a stupid question, but how do I assign the ’search’ action? When I set this up the action is ‘open url’.
Thanks
Michael
April 10, 2009 at 8:15 pm
[...] – Tutorial here [...]
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June 25, 2009 at 7:03 am