When you add a bookmark to Firefox you can also specify a keyword for it. Typing in that keyword into the address bar activates that bookmark. You can also pass a parameter to your bookmark, by typing in keyword parameter. This allows you to setup some really useful shortcuts. Here is a list of some of my searches:
| Search / Site | Keyword | Url |
|---|---|---|
| Gmail | gmail | http://gmail.com |
| http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%s | ||
| Google (shorthand) | g | http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%s |
| Wikipedia | wp | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/%s |
| My blog | d2 | http://davesquared.net/search?q=%s |
| Oracle 10g docs | oracle | http://www.oracle.com/pls/db102/search?word=%s |
The %s token in the URL is substituted with whatever you type after your keyword. I can type g linq to search Google for information on “linq”, or d2 firefox keyword searches to lookup my blog for this article when I forget the URL format required :). You can generally work out the required URL by checking the address bar after performing a search and replacing your search term with %s.