Perform any task often enough you’re bound to create a few shortcuts. I’m a Firefox devotee and an avid Twitter user so I’ve developed a shorthand system that I couldn’t live without. So whether you are visiting twitter profiles or searching twitter for a trend or keyword. Here’s how I made these tasks more efficient.
Visiting a Twitter profile.
- Old Way: Copy the @username, paste to address bar, delete the “@” symbol, add “http://twitter/” to the beginning, hit enter.
- New Way: Create a new bookmark and in the location field type “http://twitter.com/%s” minus the quotes, set “@” as the keyword and save the bookmark.
- Now you can simply type “@ username” in your address bar to visits the profile of any twitter user. Note: There is a space required between the @ and username, I haven’t found a work around but this is still easier.
Searching Twitter
- Old Way: Visit http://search.twitter.com, enter keyword, hit enter
- New Way: Create a new bookmark and in the location field type “http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%s” minus the quotes, set “searchtwitter” or “twittersearch” (something easy for you to remember) as the keyword.
- Now you can type searchtwitter followed by your search term in the address bar. (e.g. searchtwitter Iran)
- Alternate Method: Visit Search.twitter.com, hit the drop down by your search engine and add it to your available searches. For an even better experience add Twazzup or Topsy as your search engine.
Checking your RTs
As I’ve mentioned before new style RTs don’t show up in many Twitter clients. Here’s a quick way to check for new style RTs
Create a bookmark for “http://twitter.com/#retweeted_of_mine” and add the keyword “myRT”. 4 letters and you are instantly seeing any of your tweets that have been retweeted using the new system.
Shortcuts to Shortcuts – Too busy to create your own. Download all three shortcuts, unzip, and add them to your favorites.
Bonus Bookmark Goodness
Here are some other very useful bookmark shortcuts
- Search Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
- Search Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%s
- Search Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s
- YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=%s
- Thesaurus (Reference.com): http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/%s
- Define (Merriam Webster): http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/%s
I’m always looking for better ways of doing something so I’d like to know What quick searches do you use? What other tasks can we shortcut using Firefox? Comment below or reply to @tsudo on Twitter.
I hope these tricks make your browsing a bit better and a bit more efficient. Thanks for reading.
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{ 18 comments }
great list of tricks. the first tip is definitely handy… <3 firefox & twitter
Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to read and for leaving a comment.
Thanks for the first tip, that's a good one.
You might check out https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/... to add any website's search box to FireFox's search bar and then assign a key to it. This keeps you from needing to create a bookmark for sites that have a Search box.
MarkRH aka mrheadrick
Thank you, I like the addon but adding them to the search bar means I have to change my focus to the search bar and then hit the drop down box. I can change focus to the search bar w/ Ctrl+K but I don't think you can select the desired search engine with a keystroke.
By using custom quick search bookmarks I never have to use the mouse. Ctrl+L to get to location/address bar and then I just type in my keyword and search. If I can prevent moving my hands to the mouse then it speeds up the process. Good find though.
Another great tip for easily adding keywords in Firefox is to use user style (requires Stylish or Greasemonkey Add-on) called “Display keyword field in Bookmark dialog” http://bit.ly/7kurc
It automatically displays the keyword field when you bookmark a page. I use keywords frequently and this is a must have browser customization.
If you are interested in more Stylish tweaks check out this post on the Stylish Add-on http://bit.ly/rVDsr
Just do Manage Search Engines (at the bottom when you click on the down arrow of the search bar), then you can assign it a keyword. Then you can just type in keyword <space> term in the address bar just like your method and not even touch the search bar. I assigned “G” for Google, “Y” for Yahoo and so on.
For FireFox 2.X I think you have to install another add-on that will let you assign keywords to search engines. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...
MarkRH
Mark thank you so much. I learned something new today. I really appreciate your input.
Thank you, I like the addon but adding them to the search bar means I have to change my focus to the search bar and then hit the drop down box. I can change focus to the search bar w/ Ctrl+K but I don't think you can select the desired search engine with a keystroke.
By using custom quick search bookmarks I never have to use the mouse. Ctrl+L to get to location/address bar and then I just type in my keyword and search. If I can prevent moving my hands to the mouse then it speeds up the process. Good find though.
Another great tip for easily adding keywords in Firefox is to use user style (requires Stylish or Greasemonkey Add-on) called “Display keyword field in Bookmark dialog” http://bit.ly/7kurc
It automatically displays the keyword field when you bookmark a page. I use keywords frequently and this is a must have browser customization.
If you are interested in more Stylish tweaks check out this post on the Stylish Add-on http://bit.ly/rVDsr
Just do Manage Search Engines (at the bottom when you click on the down arrow of the search bar), then you can assign it a keyword. Then you can just type in keyword <space> term in the address bar just like your method and not even touch the search bar. I assigned “G” for Google, “Y” for Yahoo and so on.
For FireFox 2.X I think you have to install another add-on that will let you assign keywords to search engines. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...
MarkRH
Mark thank you so much. I learned something new today. I really appreciate your input.
great list of tricks. the first tip is definitely handy… <3 firefox & twitter
Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to read and for leaving a comment.
Thanks for the first tip, that's a good one.
You might check out https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/... to add any website's search box to FireFox's search bar and then assign a key to it. This keeps you from needing to create a bookmark for sites that have a Search box.
MarkRH aka mrheadrick
Thank you, I like the addon but adding them to the search bar means I have to change my focus to the search bar and then hit the drop down box. I can change focus to the search bar w/ Ctrl+K but I don't think you can select the desired search engine with a keystroke.
By using custom quick search bookmarks I never have to use the mouse. Ctrl+L to get to location/address bar and then I just type in my keyword and search. If I can prevent moving my hands to the mouse then it speeds up the process. Good find though.
Another great tip for easily adding keywords in Firefox is to use user style (requires Stylish or Greasemonkey Add-on) called “Display keyword field in Bookmark dialog” http://bit.ly/7kurc
It automatically displays the keyword field when you bookmark a page. I use keywords frequently and this is a must have browser customization.
If you are interested in more Stylish tweaks check out this post on the Stylish Add-on http://bit.ly/rVDsr
Just do Manage Search Engines (at the bottom when you click on the down arrow of the search bar), then you can assign it a keyword. Then you can just type in keyword <space> term in the address bar just like your method and not even touch the search bar. I assigned “G” for Google, “Y” for Yahoo and so on.
For FireFox 2.X I think you have to install another add-on that will let you assign keywords to search engines. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...
MarkRH
Mark thank you so much. I learned something new today. I really appreciate your input.
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