New Firefox extension: Search Keys

Search Keys lets you go to search results by pressing the number of the search result instead of clicking. You can press 1 to go to the first result, Shift+2 to open the second result in a new window, etc. It works with Google, Google News, Google Groups, Google Desktop Search, and del.icio.us.

Update Oct 16, 2004: The shortcut for opening in a new tab is now Alt+N on Windows and Mac, to avoid conflicting with the Ctrl+N shortcut for switching tabs. It is still Ctrl+N on Linux, which uses Alt+N for switching tabs.

14 Responses to “New Firefox extension: Search Keys”

  1. curious Says:

    Feature request:
    Open search result link in new tab!

  2. Erik Says:

    Doesn’t seem to work on Google urls other than google.com, so international users will have problems with it. And, of course, it interferes with find-as-you-type. Maybe an option to only turn it on with modifier keys? Other than that, works like a charm!

  3. nandhp Says:

    How about Next/Previous page?

  4. curious Says:

    From a extensionmirror… ctl-shift-# will open in new tab

  5. ajaksu Says:

    Would it be hard to implement this in the Suite?

  6. dolphinling Says:

    I second the request for a modifier key. Right now this interferes with Control+2 to switch to that tab.

  7. Jesse Ruderman Says:

    “Doesn’t seem to work on Google urls other than google.com, so international users will have problems with it.”

    Fixed in Search Keys 0.3.

    “Would it be hard to implement this in the Suite?”

    Seamonkey doesn’t support install.rdf, openUILink, or Firefox’s method of making a preferences window. I don’t plan to make this extension (or any of my other extensions) work in Seamonkey.

    “How about Next/Previous page?”

    Maybe. That should probably be Alt+Up / Alt+Down and part of a more general extension, though.

    “It interferes with find-as-you-type. Maybe an option to only turn it on with modifier keys?”
    “Right now this interferes with Control+2 to switch to that tab.”

    I’m thinking about how to deal with keybord shortcut conflicts. Some possibilities:

    * Make an option to require holding down Alt.
    * Make an option for what the simplest keystroke (1 or Alt+1) does: open in same tab, open in new tab, ignore, etc.
    * Make an option for what every combination of modifiers does.

  8. Jesse Ruderman Says:

    Another possibility: assign Alt+number to open the link in a new tab, and ignore Ctrl+number. There is some precedent in Firefox for using Alt for new tabs when Ctrl conflicts. That would take care of the conflict with tab-switching shortcuts. I don’t think the conflict with FAYT is a real problem, as long as I can make it ignore number keypresses when FAYT is already active (maybe by detecting the presence of the tab bar).

  9. Jesse Ruderman Says:

    I changed Ctrl+N to Alt+N on Windows and Mac (platforms that use Ctrl+N for tab switching).

    I don’t intend to resolve the conflict between this extension and *inactive* FAYT because that conflict only appears on search-results pages (this extension is inactive on most pages), only when you try to find something starting with a number, and only when you don’t prefix the number with ‘ or / or Ctrl+F. It is a problem that this extension conflicts with *active* FAYT and I will fix that if I find a way.

  10. CooLynX Says:

    It does not work if you search from a location bar. I guess it is because the location bar contains “keyword:searched%20term”.

  11. Jesse Ruderman Says:

    CooLynX: Thanks. I filed a bug about that and linked to it on the Search Keys page.

  12. edmz Says:

    Is this project going to be opensourced ? I would love to have searchkeys work in blo.gs, but then this might not be of interest to the general population :)

    great extension, thanks!

  13. Jesse Ruderman Says:

    edmz: I added hints to the bottom of http://www.squarefree.com/extensions/search-keys/ that should help you add support to blo.gs in your copy.

  14. BillR Says:

    Please consider adding an option to make “open in new tab” the default.

    Thanks for this small but definite improvement to searching. I dislike having to switch to the mouse needlessly. I look forward to the addition of other search engines such as Teoma and Vivisimo.