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.'"

Comments

Doesn't it do this?

[qoncept]

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?

Re:Doesn't it do this?

[patro]

Same with "wikipedia donkey punch". What's new?

With Ubiquity you have suggestions and instant preview, so if you type "wi donkey punch" you see other possible matches too (the film with the same name, etc.) with previews without having to go to the site.

Re:screenshots

[MoonBuggy]

You joke, but the interface is all that's new here. You can already do what the summary suggests using bookmark keywords - it is a useful feature, actually. I don't know how well-know it is, but basically you make a bookmark with a keyword for the address bar and a wildcard in the URL.

For example, if you make a bookmark with the keyword 'map' and the address 'http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=%s' (note the '%s' wildcard) you can then type 'map cleveland street london' straight into the address bar just as the summary suggests. All that they seem to be suggesting is having it come up in a 'floating' context box like the AwesomeBar rather than actually open in the tab.

Re:Official bookmark shortcuts

[inviolet]

So, basically, a bunch of officially-included bookmark shortcuts.

Opera has had this for ages. It is truly sweet to be able to type "g Argle Fargle" into the address-bar to do a google-search for "Argle Fargle" without ever touching my mouse. There is also 'z' for Amazon search, 'a' for Ask.com, 'b' for bittorrent, 'y' for Yahoo, etc. etc. And you can add your own.

Re:screenshots

[patro]

You joke, but the interface is all that's new here. You can already do what the summary suggests using bookmark keywords

Not exactly. With Ubquity you get instant feedback during typing, so you don't have to wait for the page to load with all the bells and whistles, you see only the relevant part of it.

So it's quicker and more convenient than keyword bookmarks.

Re:Official bookmark shortcuts

[master811]

No, it's oh so much more than that.

Watch the video, it explains everything, and looks like a very cool feature with a LOT of potential.

http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/ubiquity/

Re:screenshots

[patro]

Go to the address bar and type 'amazon-search the great gatsby'

Have you tried Ubiquity at all? It has completion on the commands too.

E.g. for accessing wikipedia I don't have to write "wikipedia". "wi" is enough.

Re:That sounds like it should be an add-on

[RobBebop]

Okay, so it's taking some getting used to but the Vimperator plug-in is pretty awesome. They implement Search-Replace better than Firefox, though it'll take some getting used to before I get C-i C-o instead of searching for the mouse and clicking on the Back and Forward buttons.

I love what they do with bookmarks, though. Instead of mousing over the bookmark buttons that I usually have taking up real estate on my taskbar I just type ":bmarks! xkcd" and it automatically opens my favorite web comic. Plus, I can easily envision renaming my webcomic bookmarks as "comic " so that I can open them with one sweeping ":bmarks! comic" and then just C-n with "d" through them until I've consumed them all.

Good stuff. Mod parent up. Vimperator is an excellent tool.