Help!
Note: Setup instructions are here.
What does Queriac do?
Simple answer: It lets you type g james brown in your address bar to do a Google search for James Brown.
Long and fulfilling answer: Queriac could be described as the fusion of Firefox quicksearches and del.icio.us. Queriac allows you to manage your quicksearches, shortcuts, and bookmarklets by taking them out of your browser profile and onto the web, making them portable, taggable, shareable, and generally easier to manage. Ever wanted to know what your friends are looking up in Google, or the dictionary, or keep track of your own searches? Queriac makes it easy.
What is a quicksearch?
A quicksearch (also called a keymark in Mozilla-speak) allows you to define a keyword for searching a site. For example, a keyworded bookmark could be set up so that a user could type 'g spam and eggs' in your address bar and thereby trigger a Google search for the words "spam and eggs."
Read more about quicksearches at the Mozilla Developer Center
How do I create a quicksearch?
Creating a quicksearch is easy. It's probably most easily explained with an example, so let's say you want to create a Yahoo quicksearch..
- Go to yahoo.com in your browser.
- Search for something; let's say 'dog'
- You will be taken to a new page with a URL that looks something like
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=dog. Copy this URL to your clipboard. - Assuming you've set up your browser for use with Queriac, simply type the word
newin your address bar and hit Enter. This will take you to a Queriac page for creating a new command. - Give the command a meaningful name like
Yahoo Searchand a simple keyword likey. - Paste the URL you copied earlier into the URL field and replace the search portion of the string (dog) with the letter q in parentheses:
(q). - You can optionally write a description of the command and give it some tags, e.g. 'yahoo', 'search', etc..
- Save the command and that's it! You can now type
y dogin your address bar to do a Yahoo search for 'dog'.
Browsing through other users' commands is another great way to get started. Click the 'Subscribe' link next to any user's command to add a command to your account. Click here to visit Zeke's profile. He has lots of commands.
What is a bookmarklet?
I'm gonna go ahead and steal Wikipedia's definition for this one: "A bookmarklet is a small JavaScript program stored as a URL within a bookmark in most popular web browsers, or stored within a hyperlink on a web page." The following are some generic examples of what bookmarklets can be used for..
- Modify the appearance of a web page within the browser (e.g., change font size, background color, etc.).
- Extract data from a web page (e.g., hyperlinks, images, text, etc.).
- Query a search engine, with search term(s) provided by previously selected text, or by a dialog box.
- Submit the current page to a link validation service, or translation service.
Read more about bookmarklets on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmarklet
What is a shortcut?
This one's easy. A shortcut lets you create a keyword for a page you often visit. For example, you could create a Queriac command for your favorite site, e.g. http://www.myfavoritewebsite.com/with/long/forgettable/address/ and give it a nice short keyword, say fave. Now you can type fave in the address bar and voila! Up pops http://www.myfavoritewebsite.com/with/long/forgettable/address/!
Sounds great, but I'm paranoid about privacy..
Don't want people to see what you're searching for? Queriac lets you toggle the publicity of your commands individually and the queries you make with them. If you're really paranoid, you can tell Queriac not to log your queries at all, so even you won't know what you've searched for.
I'm ready. How do I set it up?
You don't seem to be logged in. First you'll need to log in or create an account.
How do I import commands?
You can import commands that are from Firefox/Camino/Mozilla browsers here.
What is the difference between a command and a user command?
A command, although initially created by someone, isn't tied to a specific user. Rather, it simply holds the command url and default options for a command. When a user wants to use a command, they subscribe to it. Subscribing to a command creates a user command for the user. They can then customize their user command by editing the tags, options, description etc ... With users grouping around commands and sharing their knowledge, this site will hopefully one day offer commands that are maintainable and easily improved for everyone by those who you use them!
What's the difference between copying a command and subscribing to one.
These are both ways of creating user commands from someone else's commands. But they differ in that subscribing to a command ties your command to the subscribed command while a copy does not. Tying a command to an existing command can be quite helpful since it joins a subscriber to the other subscribers of a command. This allows for easy sharing of command knowledge between users. For example, subscribers can update their commands to their latest command versions on their user command pages. A temporary advantage a copy has over a subscription, is that it allows the user to fully edit their command but at the cost of being antisocial. We strongly recommend subscribing to commands as this will encourage sharing knowledge of commands between users. As Queriac growas, we will add more features to explore the benefits of groups based around commands.
If I subscribe to a command, why can't I edit my command's url and/or url options?
Currently, only creators of a command can modify anything about its url and options. Command subscribers can modify any of their option fields except for the name and option type fields. Once we develop a smart way of branching user commands, you'll be able to edit any user command. In the meantime, copy another command if a command you've subscribed too is too limiting.
Things I haven't written yet..
- Get rid of your bookmarks in your browser or they will take precedence.
- A novel.
