FirefoxSearchEngines

Summary

Ubuntu specific Firefox search engines should be included with the new releases.

Rationale

  • Connect users to the ubuntu community via quick search function (e.g. Firefox connects its users to Google with the Google engine -Ubuntu should do similar)
  • Let users get help in a much efficient and quicker way.

Use cases

  • Before: towsonu2003 cannot get his p990i cell phone connected to Ubuntu. He now has to search a bunch of places one by one...

  • After: towsonu2003 cannot get his p990i cell phone connected to Ubuntu. He types "990i" in the search engine box, selects each ubuntu-related search engine one by one and finds quickly that this is a bug that will be fixed in Feisty (I don't have a 990i, which further demonstrates the power of this spec -I have some of the engines listed below installed).

Scope

The feature asks to write and include the following search engines:

  • Package search for that specific release
  • Bug search
  • Spec search
  • Ubuntu forum search
  • Ubuntu wiki search
  • Ubuntu help.ubuntu.com search
  • Costumized Google Search "Google for Ubuntu" [see discussion below]
  • Localized search (example: Joe installs Turkish Ubuntu, he gets ubuntu-tr forum search engine as well as all listed above)

Implementation

Outstanding issues

Discussion

See for Search Engines to get an Idea how to write the engines

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=ubuntu&sherlock=yes&opensearch=yes&submitform=Search

Customized Google Engine

Google lets you create customised search engines at http://google.com/coop/cse/ Maybe we could create a search engine that covers all sites with Ubuntu specific information. -MalcolmParsons2

  • Added to the above list -thanks -towsonu2003

Existing Google Co-op Search Engines for Ubuntu Sites

Firefox already ships with /usr/share/firefox/searchplugins/debsearch.src, which searches for packages in the current release. -MalcolmParsons2

Localised search engines could be added to the mozilla-firefox-locale-* packages. -MalcolmParsons2

Indeed. Currently, mozilla-firefox ships with search plugins like wikipedia - to make them fully usable in a localized environment, they should be locale-sensitive instead of defaulting to using English sites. -KristianRink

References

CategorySpec

FirefoxSearchEngines (last edited 2008-08-06 16:59:57 by localhost)