Girish Gangadharan

Mozilla approves Select Search 3.0

// September 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // cool tool, Firefox, Select Search

No new features. Sorry. But this one took me months to finally get it right.

Every time i got this email from mozilla.org (contents shown below), my heart broke.

The following files of Select Search 3.0 have been retained in the sandbox by a Mozilla Add-ons editor:

Review Information:
Reviewer: Andrew Williamson
Tested on winxp with fx3
Comments: the pref exists checking you added doesn’t appear to be complete as I got these two errors with a quick test:
Error: Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIPrefBranch.getBoolPref]

Source file: chrome://selectsearch/content/selectsearchOverlay.js
Line: 808
and
Error: Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIPrefBranch.getBoolPref]Source file: chrome://selectsearch/content/optionsDialog.js
Line: 2977

After about half a dozen failed attempts to figure out a solution, one great suggestion by one of the reviewers (Andrew Williamson), helped me finally fix the bugs. All I had to do was add a defaults.js file under defaults/preferences folder that sets the default prefs.

I know what I’m about to say is hard to believe, but I actually have gotten quite a few emails from people asking me if I was planning to upgrade my extension and that they kind of missed it after upgrading to FF 3.0 (LOL! I swear. No kidding.) as Select Search was retained in the sandbox for several months without approval, until today. It was my fault though. I just didn’t know how to fix the bugs they reported.

I was elated and frankly relieved when I finally got this email from Mozilla today.

The following files of Select Search 3.0 have been made public by a Mozilla Add-ons editor:

Select Search 3.0 – ALL

Review Information:
Reviewer: Andrew Williamson
Tested on winxp with fx3
Comments: Looks great – thanks for the update.

Well, to all the people that contributed to the 15,513 downloads as of this second, a big thanks and here – enjoy the new version.

Search Select 1.0 Release

// November 28th, 2005 // 6 Comments » // Firefox, Pet projects, Select Search

This is not how i wanted the final version to be. But anyways…

Here’s the official release of Search Select 1.0.

Thanks a million to Jeremy who let me host this extension on his site and also created a domain for it.

http://selectsearch.23hd.com

Post your comments and suggestions here if you have any.

And before i forget, if you have Cute Menus installed, then you can see the lil’ bitty icon beside Select Search in the context menu, that Jeremy created for me, which is pretty cool. The extension will work just as fine even without it.

I’ve also added background to the menus which might seem cheesy to some people but heyy…that’s for the kid in me

Search this…

// November 22nd, 2005 // No Comments » // Firefox, Pet projects, Select Search

Well, I’ve decided to throw my bit of knowledge into the big spinning wheel of Technology.

Although what I have to offer is only a mere speck of what exists out there, I have enjoyed the hours I have put into creating, what I feel, will enhance your search experience.

I have created an extension to be used in Mozilla Firefox.

What can I say? I love Firefox (though I am a die-hard fan of Opera).

You can get firefox and check it out for yourself if you already haven’t.

So what does my extension do? Let me give you a scenario.

Let’s say I’m searching for a MP-3 player (again…he he) and I want to do some price comparisons.

Usually this is what i would do. I go to bestbuy.com for example and I find the MP-3 player I like. Then hit “ctrl + t”, type in shopping.com in the address bar and hit go. In the site that opens up, I enter what I want to compare it’s price and have my results.

Good.

But do you know what would make it great?

Staying at Bestbuy’s website, highlighting the text (i.e. IPod shuffle) right-click and going to “Advanced Search” where I have choices at my fingertips.

In this case, I would choose “Price Comparison.”

From there I can choose from the popular sites: Shopping, NexTag, Price Grabber & CNET. I just pick and click.

Or hey, what if you’re a newbie to the Tech world and have no idea what an IPod is (unthinkable, I know.)

Just highlight the word IPod, right click and this time choose “Wikipedia” under “Quick Search” menu or for the slower ones, pick “Definitions and Acronyms.” under “Advanced Search” menu. From there you may choose from Dictionary or Acronym Finder.

Oh and incase you are wondering, the definition for IPod is “a trademarked class of portable digital audio players designed and marketed by Apple Computer .”

So, have I got your attention yet?

Ok, you are at Starbuck’s site and wonder just how healthy coffee really is to your body.

Obviously you haven’t had a cup of coffee yet if you’re thinking like this.

So you probably get the idea now…select text, right click, advanced search, choose “Health” and go to WebMD.

In which you will find that Decaf coffee may raise heart risks. Woooooow,caffeine rocks!!

So these are just two examples, “Price Comparison” & Definitions and Acronyms.”

You can also pick an address on a page and look up the location in Google and Yahoo maps. Yupp…No copy-pasting line by line anymore.

But wait…there’s more…

You still have “Mapping, Shopping, Jobs, Product Reviews, Movies & TV, or Music” to choose from in Advanced Search.

And well, I guess it’s not all about Advanced Search. You could choose from Quick Search if you have a desire to.

In which you will have choices from “Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, A9, Wikipedia, or Search All (Dogpile).”

So this is my project. I call it “Select Search Beta”.

It currently is getting a “Look” and hot slogan that reads “make your right click more powerful than your left” (A big thank you to my co-worker Jeremy Johnson)

I intend on putting “Select Search” on its own site so you can read about it, install it and experience the magic (yeah…right!) for yourself.

Again, a creative mind required and so another thank you to Jeremy for that idea.

Thanksgiving part now…

Mapz librarian helped me test it and provided some valuable feedback. So did Russ, Mike and Luis.

Thanks guys.

With all the valuable feedback, when all its elements are aligned and it has reached is creative climax, I will put the link on my blog for all to download.

Will keep you updated on its birth date.