Focus-android: Consider search shortcuts in the URL bar

[brampitoyo]

Why/User Benefit/User Problem

There are many kinds/types/categories of things that I search on the web: recipes, movies, song lyrics, products I want to buy, etc. When I am looking for products, for example, I like to use Amazon’s search function. It gives me a better search result than Google can, and I can then buy the product right from the website.

This applies to other topics. For research, I prefer Wikipedia. For lyrics, I prefer Genius. For movies, I prefer IMDb.

I still prefer Google for my everyday searches, but I also want a faster way to quickly search on these specific websites if I have specific queries

What / Requirements

The ability to specify _where_ I want to search, without changing my default search engine.

Acceptance Criteria (how do I know when I’m done?)

The user can get to their answers faster than if they’re using Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Resources

DuckDuckGo has !Bangs

Firefox has search shortcuts, and we can probably follow our own approach of using the @ character. The metaphor is obvious: just as you @ somebody to mention them in a conversation, you @ a site to mention them in a search. It’s like saying “@amazon, I want to search for Harry Potter”.

[brampitoyo]

CC @vesta0

[mathu97]

Can I work on this please?

[brampitoyo]

@mathu97 While Firefox Preview doesn’t have support for @, we do already show you a list of search engine immediately after you tap on the URL bar – which already solves this problem.

Since search shortcuts is longer an problem, I’m going to close this issue.

[mathu97]

@brampitoyo which build of focus is this? I don't seem to notice this feature that shows a list of search engines immediately on tapping the URL bar. Currently, I see that you can go into settings and change your search engine, but that seems to be about it.

[brampitoyo]

@mathu97 Oh, sorry! I thought this product was Firefox Preview, not Firefox Focus.

My mistake. Let’s reopen this issue.