Soft Machine³ - Arts Tech and Other

 

Firefox has a simple “Quick Search” mechanism (a.k.a. “Smart Keywords”)  that uses”special” bookmarks with a keyword and a token replacement mechanism. Then, when you type that keyword in the address bar, the rest of what you type is dropped into the bookmark’s location at the proper place. You have just made a custom search right from the address bar — you don’t have to navigate anywhere first.  Once this is set up to your liking in Firebox, switch to Chrome and “import bookmarks and search engines.” This will give you the equivalent set up in Chrome, without the need to edit a single thing.

Let’s say %s means “token replacement string” — then the magic web “locations” below simply tack on your search “tokens” to the end of a web address, making a search query:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%s

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%s

The best part of using this feature in Firefox & Chrome is that the feedback in the address bar is immediate,  and you are reassured — and made aware you are doing a “special” search on some other site.

Here is the the “Bookmarks (quicksearch)” HTML file - suitable for  download and “Organize Bookmarks / Import HTML” in Firefox.  This file includes the set of 15 custom searches shown below, and nothing else.

I opted for the concise style, where the “bookmark name” tells you everything you need to know. If you want to change a bookmarrk’s keyword, change the bookmark’s name to match. Also, there is no need for a “description” field at all — the name says what it is, and how to use it.

 

 

 

using MyEclipse Image Editor. Surprisingly, it has layers, transparency, gradients. It also has some serious bugs though. Beware that “transparency” (non-rectangular favicon or “desktop icon”) only seems to come out via the .PNG format option… I wasn’t so lucky exporting to .GIF or Photoshop formats.

If you look closely, you’ll see I should have feathered the magic wand selection - but that’s really true alpha channel support which I don’t expect to find in free software anyway.  If you work at a high enough source resolution, the scaled-down web versions will be good enough.

 

Note: found another Flickr bug! .PNG transparency supported only at THE ORIGINAL SIZE,which means their “size conversion software” is badly broken.

Flickr you so crazy is the tag I’m using here and on Flickr to describe Flickr frustration.  I’m not mad at Flickr… I’m just telling the story as I go.

Use Firebug inspector to see that the image really has transparency. Note the light yellow background color in the tooltip display of the image.