CFA/Search-Research
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« Comparative Feature Analyses
« Search Notes
General Browser Capabilities
Search Engines
Current Capabilities:
- Ability to manage search engines: add, remove, restore default, reorder
- Automatically check for updates to search engines
- Highlight notification of ability to add search engine
Upcoming Capabilities:
- Ability to declare a default search engine - FF3 P3? (link)
- Ability to use a temporary search engine and then restore the default (one time use) - FF3 P3?
- Support search engine shortcut keys (Ryan Flint) - FF3 P2
Capabilities in other browsers:
- Multi-engine search (link)
- Local search engines on default
Conclusions:
- Default search engine: if we were to implement a default search engine option, the Safari and Flock implementations are intuitive. A right-click on search bar option to set a default engine would have been nice, but I haven't seen it on other browsers. IE's implementation looks like a hack, and Maxthon's implementation made me want to pull out my hair.
- Notify ability to add search engine: none of the sites seemed to do a clear job of this notification. A stronger visual cue here would help.
- One-time use of search engine: haven't seen it implemented on any other site. If we decide to implement this feature, we should make it an option, not a rule.
- Multi-engine search: Maxthon's search is noticeably slow, but highly customizable. SeaMonkey's solution is fast but not elegant, unless the search is esoteric. Opera's is confusing because of the two search boxes.
- OpenSearchFox is a great FF extension that allows you to right-click any search box, and add it as a search plugin. Opera has this functionality built in.
- Loki is a very interesting FF extension that leverages a wifi positioning system to integrate your location to your search. It feels like too much bloat now, but with improved performance, might be meaningful to search.
Address Bar
Current Capabilities:
- Drag and drop search
- Ability to browse by name from address bar (keyword.URL)
Capabilities in other browsers:
- Customized keyword web searches - opera link
- URL alias - maxthon
- Search bookmarks and history from Address Bar - IE
Additional features:
- Unified search - results include bookmarks, URL history, search history and the web
- Autocomplete keywords
Conclusions:
- When adding a search engine to Opera, we are able to create a keyword for using it. It notifies if a keyword is already being used. Very convenient! Also, when typing a keyword in Opera, there are visual cues to let the user know beforehand which page would be displayed.
- Some browsers such as Maxthon and Safari w/ Sogudi allow users to add keywords for specific sites that are not search engines.
- IE suggests bookmarks and history when users type in the address bar while all other sites only suggest history.
- There are no unified searches because the address bar and search bar are separate in every browser.
Search Bar
Current Capabilities:
- highlight entire search field when clicking in the box
- drag and drop search
- highlight, right-click, and search
- button information on mouse-over
Upcoming Capabilities:
- Resizable search bar (Neil Deakin) - FF3 P2
Features on other browsers:
- SnapBack - safari
- button to clear search field - safari
- search this site - camino
- Search bookmarks and history from Search Bar - flock
- wrap up feature for search engines, to search all at once - maxthon
Additional features:
- keyword web searches
- support for multiple search boxes - Groowe Search Toolbar - FF add-on
- site-specific search using search box - google
- targeted search options: audio/video podcast, photo, code, technorati searches
Search Results
Current Capabilities:
- show recent searches/search history
- offer suggestions to autocomplete searches - FF2
- google calculator suggestions in search box - FF
- display search results in this tab
- Rich search results (Gavin Sharp) - FF3 P3
- display in new tab
- display in new window
- display in sidebar
- preview search results - safari
- show matching bookmarks when searching - flock
Search this Page
- search on webpage
- highlight search text on webpage
- match case of search text on webpage
- search for text when i start typing (quick find)
- dim background on search w/in webpage - safari
- match whole word only on search w/in page - opera
- option to search in current window, local files, internet, web cache - iCab
- option to search 2 search engines at once - iCab
- search and replace - omniweb
- search for regular expressions - omniweb
- find in all tabs - shiira
Other
- writing direction in search and location bar - safari
- user profile to save search and other settings
Screenshots
Search Engines
Set default search engine
Internet Explorer:
Safari:
Flock:
Maxthon:
Multi-engine search
Maxthon:
Opera:
SeaMonkey:
Address Bar
iCab:
OmniWeb:
Opera:
Safari:
Internet Explorer:
SeaMonkey:
Search Bar
