It used to be documented somewhere... maybe under Bookmarks?

The keywords work in the address bar (URL bar) only, not in the search bar. They would be most useful to someone who only wants to display the address bar and not the search bar.

Hello jscher2000 said

It used to be documented somewhere... maybe under Bookmarks? The keywords work in the address bar (URL bar) only, not in the search bar. They would be most useful to someone who only wants to display the address bar and not the search bar.

+1

please see : http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches

thank you

iirc, there are two types of "keywords". One for Bookmarks "keywords" for searches - that goes back to before Firefox 1.0 was released in Nov. 2004. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches And another where the Keyword would be added by the user, for the Search Bar. I never used either type of "keyword" for searches and I really don't have full grasp of the differences.

And adding searches to the URL bar just served to confuse me further.

The old Search Bar Manage Search Engine List had an Edit Keyword button that allowed the user to add / edit a Search Keyword. In the 13 1/2 years I have used Firefox, I have never used that feature; and as I recall, the one time I tried it, it made no sense to me or complicated how I was searching. Too easy to just select a different Search Engine instead of remembering the "keyword" code.

This new Search Bar scheme doesn't seem to have a method or adding / editing a keyword. IMO, that is either an unfinished feature or a stray artifact left over from the old scheme. AND I think the Search Bar "isn't long for this world" - I expect it to disappear from the UI later this year. As far as my supposition of it being a "stray artifact"; Firefox 34 thru 42 had both New and Old available - and I figure someone just forgot to remove that Keyword field from the "inContent" Tab display

After all, does Firefox really need 3 places to do searches from?

1. like "inContent" the Default Homepage & New Tab page
2. URL Bar / Location Bar
3. and the Search Bar, too

Keywords for search engines added via "Change Search Settings" in the Keyword column are stored in the search-metadata.json file as an 'alias' for this engine. You can double-click the Keyword column in "Options/Preferences > Search" to edit the keyword.

• Keywords for a search engine are stored in the search-metadata.json file.
• Keywords for a bookmark are stored in the places.sqlite file like other bookmark data and are linked to a specific URL.

See also:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-search-from-address-bar

Revert Keyword Column:

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/revert-keyword-column/

Hmm, I just noticed that you can double-click the area where you want to add/edit a keyword on the Search Options page. This should be made more easily discoverable...

cor-el said

You can double-click the Keyword column in "Options/Preferences > Search" to edit the keyword.

Thanks for that.

Not user "discoverable" in the slightest. I can think of no other setting in the UI that is accessed via a double-click. And it's been like that for 10 versions now and no mention of it in related KB articles. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-search-settings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-search-bar-firefox

You can also double-click the name field and the password field in the Logins/Password Manager pop-up to edit these entries.

Ah, I thought I tried multiple keywords in the Address bar, but I just tried "TV Tropes," which didn't work and was related to the way I added that search engine to my quick search, not the keywords. Trying the other keywords in the address bar does work, now.

Yeah, I thought the double clicking thing was kind of wonky. The keywords also are a little hard to use since my keyword for a Wikipedia search is "Wiki," but that just lists a bunch of suggestions from other Wikipedia pages I've been to, and the address bar highlights the first one, so I have to hit backspace then enter to get the search and not the suggested link.

To clarify:

Using the search keywords requires that you put the keyword into the address bar first, followed by your query. So if your keyword for Yahoo is YH, and you want to look up information about Queen B, type:

YH Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter

If your keyword for Wikipedia was Wiki, you'd type this instead:

Wiki Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter

the-edmeister said

cor-el said

You can double-click the Keyword column in "Options/Preferences > Search" to edit the keyword.

Thanks for that.

Not user "discoverable" in the slightest. I can think of no other setting in the UI that is accessed via a double-click. And it's been like that for 10 versions now and no mention of it in related KB articles. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-search-settings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-search-bar-firefox

+1 We will mention that in kb articles, i'll transfer it to article discussions. :-)

Thanks to the-edmeister and cor-el

EDIT: Sorry, i did not see it yesterday, already (yesterday) the the-edmeister mention that in kb forum. What ? Am i getting older ? tell me about it :-)