Context Search

Firefox add-on to search selected text using a context menu displaying a pre-specified list of search engines defined in the extension's preferences.

On the extensions page where all your add-ons are listed, click on the "Preferences" button to the right of the Context Search extension to manage your search engines and settings for the extension.

Right-clicking on selected text in a web page will give you the option to perform a search using any of the following default search engines: Amazon, Ask, Baidu, Bing, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dogpile, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Ecosia, Facebook, Google, Google Maps, Google Scholar, Google Translate (from any language to english), Imdb, Lilo, LinkedIn, OneLook, Quora, Qwant, Stack Exchange, Startpage, Swisscows, Twitter, Wikipedia, WolframAlpha, Yahoo!, Yandex and YouTube.

Check the check boxes at the start of a line in the extension's preferences to select which search engines you'd like to appear in the context menu. After making any changes on this page, don't forget to save your changes to the browser using the "Save prefernces" button. You also have the possibility to remove search engines you don't use at all and to add custom search engines individually. You can also set whether you'd like to open your searches in a new tab or window in the foreground or in the background, or to specify if you'd like the search results to appear in the same tab.

You can now add search query strings containing the parameters %s or {searchTerms} where you'd like your search keywords to appear.

In the context menu in list mode, you may notice a "Multiple Tabs Search" menu item. This feature allows users to perform searches for a given selection using multiple search engines. In the extension's preferences page, the second check box on each line (between the keyword and the search query string) containg your search engines retain the associated search engine for multi-tab search. This feature allows you to select multiple search engines for a given search. The searches will open in a separate window and each tab will contain the search results for a different search engine that you have previously set. Again, changes have to be saved by clicking on the "Save Preferences" button for them to take effect.

With this extension, users may also perform searches in the url address bar of their browser, i.e. in the omnibox, by first typing the letters 'cs' (without quotes and standing for the first letters of Context Search) followed by a user-specified keyword for a given search engine from the extension's preferences page, followed by the search terms. For example, assuming I want to search for the words "Imagine Dragons" using the search engine Swisscows, then I would type "cs sc Imagine Dragons" (without quotes) in the address bar and hit enter. The default list of search engines have all been assigned default keywords (e.g. 'sc' for Swisscows), but these may easily be changed in the extension's preferences page.

Last but not least, you have the possibility to import a JSON file containing your own list of search engines. It is recommended to first export the list of search engines you'd like to keep from the default list and completing that list with your own favourite search engines. Exporting the file will also allow you to become familiar with the required format for each search engine. You essentially need 5 items for each search engine: an id, an index, a name, a query string url and, finally, you need to choose a boolean value (true or false) to specify if you want the search engine to be displayed in the context menu.

The main structure of a JSON file is as follows:

{
  "id": {
    "index": 0,
    "name": "search engine's name",
    "url": "search engine query string (without the search terms)",
    "show": takes the value true if the search engine is to be shown in the context menu or false if not
  }
}

Here is an example of a JSON file containing 3 search engines:

{
  "bing": {
    "index": 0,
    "name": "Bing",
    "url": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=",
    "show": true
  },
  "google": {
    "index": 1,
    "name": "Google",
    "url": "https://www.google.com/search?q=",
    "show": true
  },
  "yahoo": {
    "index": 2,
    "name": "Yahoo!",
    "url": "https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=",
    "show": true
  }  
}

The Firefox add-on may be found here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/contextual-search/

Planned features

• Integration with Firefox search engines, which will be implemented when it becomes possible. See odebroqueville/contextSearch#60