Add any search engine to your WebExtensions-compatible browser. Originally written as a replacement for Ben Basson's Context Search.
Big thanks to CanisLupus for his mozlz4 decompression script
- Works with any search engine.
- Context menu
- Popup menu with several opening methods
- Highlight search terms
- Custom Find bar with regex support
- Folders and subfolders for organizing search engines
- Bookmarklets support for user scripts
- Lite / Dark themes
- Custom user CSS for menus
- Site search support
- Reverse image search support
- International character coding for non-UTF-8 engines
- Built-in tools
- Easily add new engines from website search forms
Replace manifest.json with chrome_manifest.json or firefox_manifest.json depending on which browser you are using.
ContextSearch web-ext comes preloaded with some of the most popular search engines. No setup required.
- Select some text and right-click to bring up the context menu
- Expand the menu item
Search for ...and click the desired search engine from the list that appears.
The search results can be displayed in a number of ways depending on the key held while clicking the search engine.
Defaults:
Click -> Open In New TabClick + Shift -> Open In New WindowClick + Ctrl -> Open In Background Tab
These settings can be customized from ContextSearch web-ext Options -> Context Menu -> Search Actions
The Quick Menu is a robust popup menu that can be used to perform search actions not available to the context menu
- Select text and hold down the right mouse button until the menu appears
- Click the icon for the desired search engine
The search results can be displayed in a number of ways depending on the button used or key held while clicking the search engine.
Defaults:
Left Click -> Open In New TabMiddle Click -> Open In Background TabRight Click -> Open In Current TabClick + Shift -> Open In New WindowClick + Ctrl -> Open In Background TabClick + Alt -> Keep Menu Open
These settings can be customized from ContextSearch web-ext Options -> Quick Menu -> Search Actions
Most websites that have an embeded search bar can be added to the list of search engines in ContextSearch web-ext using the Add Custom Search option from the context menu.
- Open the website you want to add a search engine for
- Right-click on the search bar in the page to open the context menu
- Select the menu item
Add to ContextSearchto open the Add Custom Search dialog box - Click Add
After performing a search, search terms in the results page can be highlighted. The highlight styling and behaviour can be found in CS Options -> Highlight
Highlighting can be removed from a page by pressing ESC
Each search engine's handling of the query string can be modified with the Search Regex field. The format should be a well-formed array in the following order:
FIND_REGEX, REPLACE_REGEX [, REGEX_MODIFIERS]
Some search engines require + instead of spaces. In this case, to change a query from this is a search to this+is+a+search the Search Regex would be "\\s","+". Note the use of quotes and the need to escape the backslash. A literal backslash would require four backslashes \\\\
Regex can be chained using one regex replacement per line in the Search Regex field.
Some websites use search bars that do not offer a GET or POST query, instead relying on web forms and javascript. For these engines, the template should exclude {searchTerms} and instead users can rely on the Search Code field. This field allows users to write javascript code to be executed after the GET or POST query is performed. For most javascript-driven engines, this means setting the search template to the URL of the website's search form and using DOM and CSS selectors to fill in the search form and simulate a submit.
For a simple example, if somewebsite.com used a javascript-driven search form, we could perform the search by using the Search Code field like this
- Name: Some Website Search Engine
- Template: https://somewebsite.com
- Method: GET
- POST params: empty
- Search Code:
let input = document.querySelector('input');
input.value = searchTerms;
input.dispatchEvent(new KeyboardEvent('keydown', {keyCode:13, key:'Enter'}));
The search bar is assumed to be the first INPUT element which is filled in with the query string using the CS variable searchTerms and the Enter key is simulated.
Some sites will require more precise selectors and events ( click, change, etc ) in order to perform a search, but nearly all should be accessible with the search code field.
The same approach as the Javascript-Driven Search Engines above may be used to bypass session-based tokens and logins, provided the user is logged in using cookies or otherwise authenticated.
Most browsers can run custom javascript from bookmarks using bookmarklets formatting. You can add bookmarklets to CS menus through CS Options -> Search Engines -> right click menu -> Add Bookmarklet. This opens a list of all bookmarklets found in your Bookmarks. Simply click the name of the bookmarlet you want to add.
Bookmarklets have access to the Content Script API (useful for messaging the background page and accessing CS functions)
You could, for instance, create a search engine tile that toggles the 'menuless search via hotkey' option using the following bookmarklet code:
javascript:(async () => {
userOptions.allowHotkeysWithoutMenu = !userOptions.allowHotkeysWithoutMenu;
browser.runtime.sendMessage({action: "showNotification", msg: "hotkeys are " + (userOptions.allowHotkeysWithoutMenu ? "on" : "off")});
})();
The variable userOptions.allowHotkeysWithoutMenu is toggled for the current tab and a short notification is displayed by messaging the extension background page. Check out background.js -> notify() for available actions.
{searchTerms} - The current selection or link URL / image URL
{domain} - Current domain ( "http://www.example.com/this/path/" -> example.com )
{subdomain} - Current subdomain ( "http://www.example.com/this/path/" -> www.example.com )
{selectdomain} - Engine becomes a folder with all subdomains and paths listed separately ( "http://www.example.com/this/path/" -> example.com, www.example.com, www.example.com/this, www.example.com/this/path )