Search PF with FireFox or Mozilla

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg Bernhardt
  • Start date Start date
AI Thread Summary
A search plugin for Firefox and Mozilla allows users to quickly search Physics Forums (PF) without visiting the site directly. Users need to copy two files from a provided .zip into the search plugins directory and restart Firefox to enable the PF search option. Some users reported issues with installation, but others confirmed it works well. There are discussions about creating a toolbar for PF with additional features like new posts and science news. The conversation also highlights the limitations of using Google to search PF, as it may not index all threads or the latest content.
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This is a seach plugin for those of you who use firefox or mozilla. This way you can quickly search PF even if your not directly at the site.

copy the 2 files from the .zip file to:
<mozilla installation directory>\searchplugins\

once you copy the files and restart firefox, see the search engine input box, I think google is the default, click the icon with the arrow and PF should now be an option.
 

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i copied them to the folder, but nothing has changed, and i have restarted firefox
 
justinbaker said:
i copied them to the folder, but nothing has changed, and i have restarted firefox

see the search engine input box, I think google is the default, click the icon with the arrow and PF should now be an option.
 
It works!
Cool!
How did u make it? or am i not supposed to ask that?

-- AI
 
TenaliRaman said:
It works!
Cool!
How did u make it? or am i not supposed to ask that?

-- AI

Open the physicsforums.src in a text editor, it's really quite easy

For those of you who don't have firefox, get it here: http://www.mozilla.org/
 
That's awesome, it works great!
 
What the ****!
Thats it?
Man pretty neat!

-- AI
 
ohh i see now, but the default search thingy for firefox sucks, is this possible with the google extension in firefox?
 
Greg, you should submit this to mozdev:

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/contribute.html

Or atleast use the plugin generator to make it easy to install.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #10
i agree with dduardo after all this website is just as important as google. once again firefox rules and physics forums users get to use it to their advantage.
 
  • #11
What a great little plug in!

Awesome - thanks. Nearly as good as Adblock... :smile:
 
  • #12
I'm currently working on a firefox/mozilla toolbar for PF.

Features:
---------

search
new posts
new private messages
science news
quick post
reference links

anything else you guys would want?
 
  • #13
So how's that toolbar coming along?
 
  • #14
you can use a feature of firefox called "quick searches" also here. in fact, it works on all search boxes all over the net.

right click any search box (or press key between "alt gr" and "right ctrl") and click "Add a keyword for this search" give it a keyword such as "physics"

this means that in the address bar, you can actually just type "<yourkeyword> <yoursearch>"

eg. "physics frequency problem"

and it will jump to the search results for this search.

PS: LOVE the RSS feeds so useful.
 
  • #15
You can also just search in Internet Explorer. Open google type in site:physicsforums.com and your keyword.
 
  • #16
Maybe I am confused here, Monique, but why would someone want to go to google to search pf? Is there some difference?
 
  • #17
The ad-in Greg is suggesting also uses google. Google uses a superior indexing and search algorithm than is incorporated in these forum software. And not everyone has or wants to use firefox or mozilla.
 
  • #18
Monique said:
The ad-in Greg is suggesting also uses google. Google uses a superior indexing and search algorithm than is incorporated in these forum software. And not everyone has or wants to use firefox or mozilla.

The problem with using google to search PF is that google doesn't have every thread indexed and won't have the new threads since google only updates every few days.
 
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