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Command Lines and the Future of Firefox
Barence writes "Mozilla has revealed how it plans to integrate plain text commands directly into future versions of Firefox. Dubbed Taskfox, the move sees Mozilla's Ubiquity project become part of the browser itself, allowing users to type commands directly into the address bar. You can, for example, type 'map cleveland street london' to bring up a Google Map of that location, or 'amazon-search the great gatsby' to find that book on Amazon, without visiting the website directly. 'The basic idea behind Taskfox is simple: take the time-saving ideas behind Ubiquity, and put them into Firefox,' the Taskfox wiki claims. 'That means allowing users to quickly access information and perform tasks that would normally take several steps to complete.'"
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Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Wow, they have actual screenshots of the commandline interface. Who would have thought that was possible.
So, basically, a bunch of officially-included bookmark shortcuts.
I hope it can be turned off.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
With keyword search, there's dozens of websites I don't have to "visit" to use. This just seems like a more intelligent version.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Where's my first post text command??!
I've typed "imdb back to the future" in the address bar and had the page I wanted come up right away. Same with "wikipedia donkey punch". What's new?
Whale
Search keywords have been in firefox for ages. I.e. right clicking on a search box in an arbitrary web page and turning it into a address bar command. I've used it to do all the examples in the summary.
"delete dupes slashdot"
alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls
How long will it be before they start selling "placement" services? Mozilla is non-profit but they could use the money to fund development.
Right-click on a search box and choose "add a keyword for this search." I use wp for Wikipedia searches and az for amazon ones. Very convenient, but I'm not sure how this new command line function will be any different.
the Opera browser has had this for at least a couple versions already - if you enter ' g (search phrase here) ' it will google for you, e for ebay, etc etc.
This is old hat, no?
... for Mozilla to keep their filthy commands out of the address bar. They could easily add that to the search plugin bar without any problems. I had enough trouble last night when I was trying to troubleshoot a neighbor's internet connection issues and Firefox would repeatedly send the perfectly valid address (http://192.168.1.1) I was inputting off to a google search, which of course would return a blank page, since the ultimate trouble was the cable modem, not the router nor the connection to the router.
There needs to be a gigantic "FUCK YOU, LEAVE ME ALONE, LET ME SURF THE WEB AS THE FLYING SPAGHETTI WEASEL INTENDED" button in the settings.
Screenshot from article
The idea is interesting, but wouldn't this be better served as an add-on? That would keep Firefox true to it's add-on roots, IMO.
ok but when it comes back with "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike" I'm out of here...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Either this is an announcement of something they've already done - or they aren't aware of the capabilities of their own (existing) browser. Entering the two examples into the address bar of my installation of Firefox (v3.0.8) yields the desired results already.
In the beginning operating systems only had command lines.
Then the GUI replaced the command line.
Then the browser replaced the operating system.
Then the browser got a command line.
I tried that and google maps brought up london street in cleveland. Needs work guys.
Firefox is gonna be like the Emacs Operating System ... only bigger
over the past 20 years I've been amazed at how the IT world first started scorning command lines (IE the rise of Mac, Windows and GUIs in general) only to come back to them (IE Mac OS X / spotlight / Quicksilver, Windows / launchy, smart address bars, and the increasing amount of people who started using Linux with Ubuntu and are nwo flocking to the command line).
This just proves what i'd known all along: command lines are more efficient, and although the learning curve might be a bit steeper, they just kick ass for things you have to do repeatedly. You of course learn the commands and then whiz by all those people whose motor skills barely allow them to use the mouse, yet they insist in their clickety-clickety ways.
Many operations are easier with a GUI but getting rid of the command line altogether (mac OS 1.x-9.x, I'm looking at you) is/was never a good idea.
If they make it easily configurable, then I believe it will be as successful as the "smart" location bar - a bit strange at first, but after 2 days of use I can't image how FF2 was so popular without it.
So we already have keyword commands such that I can put "dir: " and have firefox search the corporate directory at my company. Want to search amazon? What about just typing "amazon.com " Google seems pretty good about finding it. The worst part about these "text commands" is having to remember all the commands that they're going to decide to implement.
Unless of course amazon decides to pay firefox for keyword usage...
Uhhh... how is this news? I've been doing that with Firefox for ages using bookmark keywords. So I have w foo to look up foo on Wikipedia and p foo to look for python documentation about foo for example. That could easily be expanded to do imdb searches, etc if I wanted to. It's reasonable to claim the interface for setting up these searches could be improved, but the functionality is already 99% there.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
A browser is copying an opera feature. What a shocker. And everyone will be like "ZOMG AWESOME!!!1" and nobody will give opera credit. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, opera can make custom search shortcuts out of any search bar. From what I read that's basically all it is with google maps and whatnot.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
Users can already do that with the search text field. Example1. Example2. This new feature doesn't appear to bring any new value to the user over what is already provided.
I'd really like to see Mozilla spend one release where they stop working on new features and focus solely on fixing bugs. The results of such an effort would be more valuable to the end user.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
They're adding google?
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
Looks like glorified Awesome Bar for me. Wake me up when they come up with a real CLI. Something like for i in seq(0, tabcount() - 1); do print(tabs[i], "~/mozilla/webpage%d.pdf" % i, Printer0); done
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
.
If I wanted bloat I would use IE.
embedding a virus into your system folder has never been so easy!
You are eaten by a grue.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It would be nice, but not as "let me guess half way what you want as you type in the address bar" kind of thing. Much of that is there already. If you want to add a real command line, then create an add-on with multi-line commands, some logic built-in, perhaps piping. In other words, do a "bashy" thing.
While we're at it, why not allow execution of scripts written in this new language? Now, that would be cool.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
I've gotten used to typing "arr heroes" in the address bar to use my Pirate Bay quick search...
Does anyone else see this as a BIG (like ActiveX-sized) security hole???
Will I be able to run Lynx in it?
Oops, I deleted the Internet. Sorry.
How about abstracting the profile from the program itself? Maybe make it a separate module which can then be pluggable. So then, if I want to run firefox in a corporate environment via GPO, I can use a module which allows me to do that.
And let's bin the entire concept of multiple profiles per account while we're at it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
IMHO.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
When Firefox was created, it was a spinoff of the Mozilla project for people who wanted 'just a browser' with extensions to fill in the rest.
Part of me wonders if it's time to do that again: spin something new off of the Firefox project for people who want 'just a browser' with extensions to fill in the rest. Firefox has done a lot of good, just like Mozilla before it, but it seems to me like it's starting to suffer from the same bloat-over-standards problem that made the original project necessary in the first place.
Maybe this is a cyclic thing; I don't know. Perhaps it's just plain going to be necessary to do this every few years: when a Mozilla browser gets too large, a lean child project emerges, eventually takes over, bloats up, and another lean child project emerges, and so the cycle continues.
I hope it stops suggesting porn when my friends and family use my computer.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Isn't the whole internet-thing a big command line-search? You send some (small) text string, and receive more useful text back. But why put it in firefox? It's already possible to to add a custom search, and a default one. Change the default one from google.com to firefox.org/search-cl and let the server guess you're real intension. But hey, doesn't google work that way already?
I was excited, thinking that the command-line was back, and I could ditch this horrible mouse interface. But then I read that it's only for skipping common search interfaces. Big deal.
What I wanted, what I want, what wolud actually get me to switch from IE to FF, what I need is to be able to control the browser from a command-line interface. I want to type something like "add favourite 'my favourite recipes' in 'food links'" and "go back" and "favourite 'my favourite recipes'" and "new tab 'live.ca'" and "close all other tabs".
I don't care about search. There's already as many serach bars as I want, and smart address bars, and ISP searches. Already if I serached for "amazon magic beans" I'd get a listing with the expented book about jack from amazon. I don't need fancier searching. I don't have trouble searching. I have trouble with slow interfaces to vast feature sets within browsers.
"stop loading images"
"javascript off"
"deny cookies"
"accept cookies"
"read privacy policy"
"view certificate"
"disable flash"
"maximize"
Hell, what I want is the windows key to pull up a generalized command-line interface, either to the OS or to the current application. I'm sick of long drop-downs, fly-outs, ribbons, menus, and checkboxes. I can type faster than I can click -- and who's ever heard of clicking without looking?
Maybe I'm missing something, but you can already type 'map cleveland street london' or 'amazon-search the great gatsby' in the address bar and get the exact results you need. Is this inventing a solution to a problem that does not exist?
Apparently, Mozilla can't help but add feature after feature after feature to anything they create. Might as well just merge SeaMonkey, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird back into one big, bloated app again.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
It is about scope creep in the browser. They are re-implementing what Google, and other search engines, have done. This functionality belongs on a server somewhere, not in a browser.
It would have to be updated constantly based on what new information they want to make queryable. I don't want a Mozilla update every time somebody thinks it would be cool to add searches for bar codes or concert tickets or whatever.
Now, if the developers who are working on this want to make a cool thing like this, then they should go out on a venture and start a web site that does it. Maybe make a plug-in for various browsers. But search capabilities are NOT part of the browser, they are part of a search engine.
Is the problem that Firefox is just so good now that scope creep is the only way we can think of improving it? Maybe it is time to cool off for a while and just fix bugs. Not exciting, but this kind of creep is what leads to forks.
I'd really like to see Mozilla spend one release where they stop working on new features and focus solely on fixing bugs. The results of such an effort would be more valuable to the end user.
You're absolutely correct. But, while it is a whole lot more valuable to the end user, it's a whole lot less interesting to the developers.
In the current version of firefox, I just copied and pasted "map cleveland street london" into the address bar. The first result from google that comes up is a google map of that specific address.
So, tell me again why we need ubiquity?
I've had an inclination for some time to write up a specification for servers to set up command-line interfaces which you could use to access their site in a manner that is sort of like a mix of ReST and Bash. A naive design for such a system would be when you type a domain name into your browser bar, the browser fetches a CLI description in Javascript/AJAX or something.
Imagine tab-completing the titles/slugs of news stories! To me that's much more exciting than this new Firefox feature.
Check out goosh -dot- org. Google reduced to a command line. And what else do you really need but google.
let's call it phoenix, so it can rise from the ashes of firefox?
Like vimperator?
Mozilla has revealed how it plans to integrate plain text commands directly into future versions of Firefox. Dubbed Taskfox, the move sees Mozilla's Ubiquity project become part of the browser itself, allowing users to type commands directly into the address bar.
ummmm...what happened to firefox being a bare bones base that you'd add your own addons to?
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
I typed both these into the search box and got the results.
I am not convinced this gains anything.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Why not just BUNDLE SOME FUCKING PLUGINS, rather than ignoring the whole plugin-based architecture you've set up?
If you could do it just fine as a plugin, bundle the thing instead of removing the feature of not having it
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I see a new feature here. Graphical text adventures in the browser with almost no overhead.
i typed those phrases into the chrome address bar and the first result that appeared in both cases was exactly what i wanted. all the chrome address bar does is pass them along to google.
so is firefox re-implementing google, except every possible search entry has to be hard-coded in? i don't get it. google has already solved this problem much more efficiently...
Take opera into address bar type g hello world search google for hello work. type w WW2 Search wikipedia for WW2 go to anything that has a search function, right click and Create search. Find a "keyword" that makes sense. New command added. Has been like that for years.
"who's ever heard of clicking without looking?"
Heard of it? Hell, that's two-thirds of the malware problem, right there.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I use the command line almost exclusively apart from for web browsing and even then I still use lynx a whole bunch. Ubiquity strikes me as little more than a geeky circle-jerk involving GUI-weenies who think they're "1337".
When a command line user like myself looks at this and thinks "I hope I can turn this off with the rest of the crap*", you've got to wonder about the wisdom of adding it in the first place.
* prefetching, pings, safe browsing, search suggestions, that stupid default plugin thing and I guess I'll even be disabling audio and video at compile time with 3.5 since I've no intention of installing GStreamer.
Problem Exists Between Keyboard And.... Your neighbor must have some weird setting, or you just weren't typing it in properly (with the http and all).
.com, but never google search it....
I've done tons on intranet and modem/router troubleshooting with firefox, and I never, ever had it take a properly valid address and shove it into google search. Sometimes if I mis-type, it will try to append a
Patent troll sues Mozilla corporation in 3...2...1...
There's a whole lot more to this than simple searching via the URL bar.
See this video and shows how powerful it could be: http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/ubiquity/
I'm really liking the uninformed bullshit about this being bookmark keywords with a GUI. Do you have a keyword to go back? Home? Forward? Stop? Restart firefox? Act as a calculator? Check next Tuesday's schedule in google calandar instantly? There is a tonne of things ubiquity can do and while it's true some of it's functionality can be mirrored by keywords I would like to see a keyword bookmark that allows you to do "add lunch with jim tomorrow" to your google calandar.
In 1993, the project I worked on (a faster, more cross platform Acrobat-like reader) added a tcl module. By adding it, and setting up a few trivial cmds (open_book, close_book, goto_page, set_zoom) we were able to send events and remotely control the program, if the listener was setup. It was useful for training individuals and large groups on the program (kept everyone on the same page) and for recording trouble shooting methods that could be repeated by different users. We built a knowledge-base of if problem looks like this - then determine the solution by following this solution tree across these 45 documents. We had no security model - we were on a highly secure network with no outside access.
Outside scripting is easy to add, damn easy. The hard part, because nobody thinks about it until it is too late, will be securing access. Ok, on UNIX, that really isn't too hard (just use PKI between the client and server and set the client to 500), but on Windows, it is.
Opera has been doing that for years. You can use all your search tools (even user-defined) as commands on the address bar. For instance, if on my Opera address bar I type 'ext mdb', that will take directly to http://filext.com/file-extension/mdb
http://goosh.org/
I think that most people finally learned to type and find it easier than trying to remember obscure pictographs.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
This would be useful:
> firefox map cleveland street london
a window appears with the result - no need for the mouse at all.
That's what I use my IRC bot for. And it has the advantage of being useful to other people in the channel too.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
So, we're back to a command-line interface.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
...I do this now with Keyword Search bookmarks. I actually have one called "map" which does exactly what is stated in the summary - searches google maps with the remainder of the input. "map 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA" takes me to Apple, for example.
It seems as though instead of educating people how to use certain features, the FF developers would rather take the time to completely re-create them in order to get them noticed.
How about a "new feature" where you migrate all these extra functions into XPIs and allow us to strip the browser bare if we so wish? Wasn't that the reason for the plug-in architecture to begin with?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
http://yubnub.org
I'm surprised I'm the first one to mention this.
Also, I had seen thatfeature in other browsers (before Opera). IMHO, search bar is still more convenient.
I especially liked one browser's implementation, where I could make a special button for Google, Amazon, Yahoo, etc next to the search bar.
Though in the end, it was easier to just use Google for everything.
Man, I remember when I thought Ubiquity was totally awesome. Yeah, that high lasted about a day. And then I remembered there was Google Chrome out there. And then I realized that people aren't actually making gobs and gobs of commands for Ubiquity.
Of course that's not to say that this won't take off and become the Next Big Thing. It could. It probably won't though. I guess we'll see.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Users can already do that with the search text field.
Actually, a feature which has been present since Communicator (I believe) does exactly this - right click on any input element on a page and select "Add a Keyword for this Search..."
Funny thing that this article talks about typing "map some address" in the bar to get to Google maps - I've been doing that for at least a year now. I don't even keep my Search Bar visible, I can just type "google <whatever I'm looking for>" in the Location Bar. I'm not even sure why this is news?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
it's time for the Natural Language interface to hurry up and get here. Or, more realistically, it's time for the CLI to be reborn into a more user friendly version with a concept of synonyms, and a google-style "did you mean?" and rich interactive help.
(note to CS-ish folks--yes I know there are examples of this sort of CLI in existence that have been around for years, but AFAIK, none of these has ever caught on. What I'm saying is, maybe now it's got a chance.)
It's a good idea. Will anyone program it?
Furry cows moo and decompress.
I don't mind a console, especially one that is easy to get to, but why are we cramming everything into the address bar? Seriously if this is browser that we want Grandma to use (because it isn't getting hijacked), why are we giving her more opportunity to screw things up in there?
It is very cyclic as you say, but its actually more like a Genetic Algorithm. Someone first writes some code that does what they need, and then someone else modifies it for additional features they want. Other people start using various versions and the one that satisfies the most situations becomes dominant. Eventually this goes a step too far and a new modification is made and splinters off the main trunk, and depending on what that new version does differently it may become the dominant version. For example, we started with Gopher, Mosaic, Netscape, Mozilla, then Firefox. Seamonkey appears to be the kitchen sink replacement for the original Mozilla while Firefox was the lighter weight version. Other lighter weight browsers (e.g. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mozilla-based.html ) in the family come and go depending on how much support they get, which of course depends entirely on its user base.
If Firefox didn't take 3-4 seconds to render pages this wouldn't be necessary.
When I can download files with it from a shell script, then they can call it a "command line". -- Disappointed_in_Denver
-- Consensus - 50% probability that the majority are wrong.
reformat internet//*.* \all
Table-ized A.I.
...and my family stills types website urls into google.
If Mozilla continues to transfer seach functions from the search bar to the address bar, they will turn the search bar in to a uses appendage that just takes up space.
Hey Mozilla, why don't you put search functions into the search part of the interface!
I completely agree with you, and it's one reason I shunned the older MacOS versions for so long.
(I even remember the days of Windows '95 coming out as a brand new product. Many of us questioned if it really made sense to operate inside that environment ALL the time, as opposed to the Windows 3.x model, where you started out in MS-DOS, and could launch Windows on-demand, and quit back to DOS again.)
I think the plan with MacOS, though, was to provide a more friendly and usable environment for the "masses", with the understanding that some functionality and "power" would be lost in the process. Even today, you see MANY computer users who barely want to do anything with the machine besides launch one of several programs they use. They simply wouldn't miss a lack of a command line.
Something like they did with OS X is far better though... giving people *both* options.
Users can already do that with the search text field.
No, they can't. At least, they can't do everything Ubiquity allows one to do. Go get your learn on.
Honestly, how hard is it to visit the damn website and see everything it can do (such as live previews of search results, among other things)?
The project is stagnant.. yet still has a huge user base. I submitted a bug recently, it was acknowledged as valid, but there was pretty much zero traction on getting a fix despite multiple people submitting confirming logs, etc.
I guess, since it doesn't make money, it's not a priority.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
... yet one more context where data might be executed as code.
...I just wish they would fix the longstanding print bug that makes long web pages print only on the first sheet of paper and lose the rest of the web page. I'm getting tired of having to start up Konquerer everytime I want to print out the showtimes at my local movie theater from fandango.com.
I already type "g ATI R740" in the adress bar of Opera when I want Google to tell me if ATI's latest is available yat, or "w Godly Hammer of Roxxoriness" when I want to search WoWHead for that item ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
There were no GUI's when I started playing with PC's. I had to learn how to do everything from the command line. Then, they created GUI's which I learned to use. Then, they created Windows, thereby making all those cool GUI's obsolete. Then, I finally learned Linux, making Windows obsolete - still with GUI's. Now, they are returning to the command line, except, I have to learn how THEY WANT IT DONE. Balls. I don't need this crap. It's not so much that you can't teach an old dog new tricks - but the damned dog's days are numbered. He isn't going to waste them learning yet a new way of doing stuff.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
With surfraw, you can type things like "google [keywords]" directly in the shell and get the results page in your preferred browser. Or include those commands in a script. Etc.
Yet it's not perfect. When you really start to use surfraw, the next thing you realize is that commands alone just aren't enough, you probably also want a facility for aliases, like when you inadvertently type "gogle [keywords]". The other thing you need after that is a simple postprocessor for the command parameters to fix quoting issues and special characters. Those come up quite frequently when cutting and pasting keywords, and because search engines have their own character preprocessing semantics (things like +/- have special meanings which can yield nonintuitive results). Then if you use the shell much at all, you probably want to be able to pipe the results into another command such as grep or sed. With surfraw, simply choose a text browser as the target, and you can type things like "google keyword | grep keyword".
Wake me up when firefox can do all that.
It's funny when microsoft, firefox, or others come out with a feature and suddenly it's being held up as revolutionary. Once again they are just playing catchup.
Safari's new thumbnail view is suspiciously like Opera's speed dial. This touted feature is integrated into opera as has been forever.
wtf, this is pretty much the way i use firefox at the moment, since the URL bar has a degree of parsing anyway. if i want to look at bikini atoll on google maps, i type in 'google maps bikini atoll'. if i want to look at a startled cat on youtube, i type in 'youtube startled cat'. it works about 90% of the time.
please restate bitrate in libraries of congress per hour.
That's a popular myth. The road map for the Firefox project has always been to create the best Windows web browser for end-users with the "right features".
Profit. Profit happened.
Look here: http://my.opera.com/cstrep/blog/2009/03/19/ubiquity-for-opera-1-0-released
Nice idea though it will be tough to beat Google, which already has a handle on a bunch of bits of that video, and they already understand about leveraging search in a front end processor. But there is an opening and it naturally would leverage community and open source.
I just typed into google,
get me today's sky chart from skyandtelescope.
Didn't quite work, 3rd link or so tells me about S&T's sky chart applet.
Actually, Google is quite dumb still!
And !! that's nasty, I just tried "get me today's sky chart" and hey the top link which sounds good gives me some phishing crap screen. You don't want to be indiscriminately pulling shit off google search results and depending on it, pasting it into insecure apps, or sending it to people. So there is no concept of security yet.
Like another poster I'd like some useful natural language parsing, so we need a good basic engine. It could be upgraded over the web and continuously developed, great. Community can add patterns a la ALICE (what was that darpa agent language again).
On top of this, the equation the Taskfox people are saying is to replace desktop apps with cloud-based scriptable apps in firefox. But guess what? There's a reason I (kicking and screaming) moved from Firebird email and Gmail to Outlook. (Which I hate, but will probably have to buy Outlook 2007. Ouch.) What needs to be done is also script the desktop, and replace as needed commercial apps with free, dynamically pluggable over the net, open source apps. Also consider, though I have not developed with firefox, if firefox provided on the desktop a server that could be called by small widgets or large miniapps, it could be pretty easy for the community to quickly take over the desktop and make it completely scriptable / accessible. What we really want is to be able to empower everything we have, not just firefox.
My two cents. I'll try ubiquity or task fox and see if I can contribute anything when I have time.
I'd be happy if it didn't blow up 3 or 4 times while I was reading my slashdot articles. Firefox has become a real pig...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1147437&cid=27056793
The End of Days likes to post using multiple registered accounts here on this website which he uses to mod his posts up with. How lame, and he admits to that very lame practice of it in the url shown.
What I would like to see is a command line like firefox --save-page-in-png-to /tmp/page.png http://page.com/