digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

Quick Firefox Tip: Single-key search tool

lifehacker.com — When you press slash (or the apostrophe key), you'll see a little Quick Find field in the lower-left corner of the screen--not unlike what you get from pressing Ctrl-F (but without any of the Find controls). Start typing and you'll see instant results. Wait a moment and Quick Find disappears on its own.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • agentshags, on 10/12/2007, -36/+34firefox pwns the universe
    • corevette, on 10/12/2007, -18/+33personally, i don't find this /that/ much different that doing a Ctrl-F....but...pretty neat anyways
    • ajxx, on 10/12/2007, -15/+44...just like opera, vim, less, man...
    • avalenci, on 10/12/2007, -14/+34Opera has this as well, and VIM ... well , for years .
    • kodek, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14How can people digg these people down when what they're saying is true? They're not opinions. They're facts.
      I also noticed the similarity to vi and the other unix tools.
    • Zera, on 10/12/2007, -9/+10The Google Toolbar lets you type as many words as you want, and then click the 'highlighter' icon, and it highlights every word throughout that page. And different search terms appear in different highlighted colors! It is an extremely powerful tool. You can then click a given word to move the focus from the first word to the next word, instantly.
    • simplenation, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14this is how i search my comments on digg
    • RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+65theirs an option to start searching as soon as you start typing in the advanced menu (last tab in options) which makes this slash protocol useless.
    • GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10@Zera

      On the FireFox search, you have:

      [X] [Find: *Search bar*] [v Find Next] [^ Find Previous] [Highlight All] [Match Case]

      You can highlight all terms.

      I've never like this shortcut. If I'm typing, I'll often accidentally hit "/" and it'll start searching for whatever I'm typing, with that BLIP-BLIP-BLIP noise. I like CTRL + F a lot more, you cannot accidentally hit it but it still takes no effort.
    • gklitt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The biggest difference from Ctrl+F seems to be that you can just click enter when you find text in a link, and it automatically goes to the linked page, which is pretty convenient.
    • GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1What? When you hit enter, it shows "Reached end of page, continued from top".
    • freddo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1@corevette

      The options proposed are different, when i started using firefox, in linux i did use / and in windows i used ctrl-f. I took me probably a couple of days to figure out why i didnt got the hightlighting option with the linux version... dumb me.
    • djlosch, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2why does anyone need an extension for this?

      not only is it built in, but it's been enabled by default since at least ff2. buried as lame.
    • angrycat, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Hahaha you pathetic losers are so amazed at something so simple. This feature was in Opera for as long as I remember, knowing how ***** mozilla works they probably copied it from Opera, and in true mozilla fashion even managed to make it worse.
    • antymatter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3you know if you just type (outside of a search box) it will open "quick find"
      at least on mac
    • kalleanka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I hate that there is no short cut for "search next".
      Say I type something and I now want to do a "search next", I have to press CTRL+F to get the search buttons, then I need to move the mouse to click the "search next" button.

      There really should be a key-board shortcut to do a "search next".
    • forensicmeteobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4==kalleanka==
      I hate that there is no short cut for "search next".
      Say I type something and I now want to do a "search next", I have to press CTRL+F to get the search buttons, then I need to move the mouse to click the "search next" button.

      There really should be a key-board shortcut to do a "search next".
      ==

      F3.
    • edsonmedina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2==kalleanka==

      Crtl + G
    • albrad84, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"The Google Toolbar lets you type as many words as you want, and then click the 'highlighter' icon, and it highlights every word throughout that page. And different search terms appear in different highlighted colors! It is an extremely powerful tool. You can then click a given word to move the focus from the first word to the next word, instantly."

      I used to keep the Google Toolbar around exclusively for this reason, but I found an extension, SearchWP, which does the same thing, but using the integrated firefox search box.
      https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/376/
    • danielg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3In the Opera browser you would simply use the "." (the period) key for quick find.
  • Endium, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I knew about this, and it makes searching so much easier, especially when theres only one spot where the search occurs on the page.
    • icculus87, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Yeah, I do this several times daily it seems.
    • prockcore, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Even if there's more than one spot. F3 will jump to the next occurance. It works in View Source too.
    • orangemarmalade, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2ever since i heard about this, i've been using heaps. and it's really annoying when i get to school and try it (out of habit), and it doesn't work because they use IE for some reason.
  • nathanlandis, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6Actually, quick search IS unlike Find. Find searches the whole document, whereas quick search only searches from the current point in the document down.

    Yes, it's a handy tool; however, it is *not* Find.
    • auhsor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It used to be a lot more similar to Ctrl-F. I think they changed it in 2.0, but pressing / used to bring up the extra buttons (next etc). I remember reading the bugzilla entry where they changed it. I kinda wish they didn't as now I have to press Ctrl-F when I'm searching for something instead of / which limits my options.
    • scbysnx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5in 1.5 quicksearch *is* find and in my opinion thats a lot better set-up
    • Ranadok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You can make a quick edit to the userchrome.css to restore the old style quick find:

      http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=469074
    • cdmarcus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There's an extension called FAYT (find as you type) that restores that functionality. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3650/
    • dAbReAkA, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1seems pretty useless to me.. the "/" key is too far away to press with the left hand (as the right is using the mouse..)..
      it also lacks key functionality..
  • MackPrime, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Just for one area ? That's actually not THAT useful. The ' key is far away from the main keys, so it seems harder. Ctrl+F is easy cos F is a homekey.
    • johnthedebs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11If you use apostrophe instead of Ctrl-F or a slash it will quick find for links only, as opposed to any text in the page that matches. Another useful tip: You can use Ctrl-G to cycle through all the matches in the page.
    • Adenosine, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The slash is the button just below your pinky (just south of the ';') if your fingers are on 'home row.' That doesn't seem so far away. The Control button is at least teice as far in either direction - So what were you saying before? The quick search is a better choice..
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It doesn't only search links, it works the same way as the Ctrl-F find, but without the buttons. (F3 still finds next)

      Also, if you enable find as you type, you don't need to hit ' or / to start quick find, just start typing. (Outside of a textbox)
    • williebee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@jonthedebs Thanks I didn't know that.
  • bulkka, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32oh god.. isn't it an old-known feature?
    • syco123, on 10/12/2007, -15/+8Here's another tip I'm sure you've heard,

      stop being an elitist dick.
    • zouden, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13No, he's right, this feature was in Firefox 0.6 (back when it was Phoenix). And you guys call yourselves geeks??
    • esourcemag, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1This is what I thought. I'm surprised it made it to Digg front page just now. Does anyone know if it made it to there in the past?
    • chapium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been using Firefox since the early Phoenix betas and didnt know about this.
  • sirdaz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+26I can't see myself leaving ctrl+f for this.
    • idonthack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's not really for people to migrate from Ctrl+F, it's for people who are used to *nix command-line editors that just have a habit of hitting / whenever they want to look for something.

      BTW, this works in Konqueror too.
    • rnelsonee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have the option turned on so I don't even need to hit "/" and I love it. I've always hated using the mouse, so I routinely navigate the web by simply typing in a few letters and hitting enter. It's also great when you're on a site like CNN or something. When I want to quickly find a story among the 100+ links there, like the Boston bomb scare thing, I'd type "bost[Enter]" and the page about that story loads up.
    • ostracize, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or when I'm here on digg looking to see if I have any responses to a past comment. I don't know exactly where my comment is on the page so I just type ostrac[Ctrl+G] until I find my comment.
  • jaxxon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Like Find, ESC cancels the Quick Find sooner than the timed delay.
  • pinab, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15There is also an option to find as soon as you start typing....
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Called "Search for text when I start typing".
      It's exactly the same as hitting ' or / before typing something.
    • PhilH, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I find that "find as you type" is the best option for me. It's no-key searching, although it does break hotkeys on some pages like netvibes.
    • libertao, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is the very first tweak I make when I install a fresh copy of FF. It's so convenient and I'm so used to it that it drives me nuts when using IE.

      Then I install adblock :-D
  • bohrhead, on 10/12/2007, -2/+35If you go to Options > Advanced > General and switch on 'Search for text when I start typing', you don't even have to "press slash (or the apostrophe key)".
    • insomn3ak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Nice! Perfection!
    • syco123, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1nice, now that is an improvement on the tip.
    • amoeba, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1nice, that's the way to do it!
    • krunk4ever, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This has been around for quite awhile, though I don't recall when it was moved into the preference window

      If you goto about:config and search for keyword: ahead
      You'll find this preference: accessibility.typeaheadfind

      and even in Phoenix 0.6, if you set that to true, searching as you type is enabled with no CTRL+F or hotkey (i.e. ' or /)

      However, in Phoenix 0.6, the default was linksonly, but they changed that in recent versions to default that to false.
  • allanak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18WTLW...I thought everybody knew about this?
    • nicroma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I was surprised to see this as well.
  • johnthedebs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2For those interested, no where was it mentioned that if you use apostrophe rather than slash it will do a Quick Find for links - very useful for those who like navigating using as many keyboard shortcuts as possible (without tabbing through every element in the page).
  • 4th3157, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I find this feature very irritating, especially as sometimes it doesn't allow me to use the apostrophe key when I'm typing into a text box. Someone please fix that bug.
    • Dielji, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Same problem here. Once in a while it gets stuck on, and no matter what I do I can't type a /; the only way I've found to fix it is to restart Firefox.
    • akinder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Getting dugg down for bringing attention to a Moz bug that STILL hasn't been fixed? Hooray for Digg.
    • SteveMax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Possibly you are getting buried because complaining on Digg will make no difference. File a bug.
  • Spetz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I have been using it for a while now. Very handy for finding your own comment on a digg thread. :)
  • riyehn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I've been using Quick find, with find-as-you-type, pretty much since I started using Firefox. It's probably one of the most indispensable features for me. Now I always get confused in other browsers when I start typing and nothing shows up.
  • mennonite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I stumbled across this by accident (I use vim quite a bit), so I can see how this is news to some folks, (I guess this is documented, but really, who reads that).

    Anyway, I would like to bitch that / only opens "quick find" now instead of a full find (like it did in < 2.0). I can't really think of any circumstances where someone benefits from not having access to a Next/Previous button or keyboard shortcut... Why on earth did they implement a feature identical to a pre-existing feature, but with less flexibility?
  • cardyology, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Is a similar thing possible in IE6? I cant use firefox at work!
    • smacksy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6try Portable Firefox: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

      You load it onto a USB drive and you can use it straight off the stick without even having to install the program.

      I believe the only thing similar in IESux is the ctrl-f function, which, well, sux.
    • syco123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Portable apps is a good tip. You can use any card and reader. Handy if you have reader slots on your machine, but no thumb drive. I keep gimp portable on my camera's compact flash card too.
    • cardyology, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I asked a valid question so I dunno why some assholes are digging me down but hey, thats Digg I guess.

      For you guys who suggested portable firefox, thanks!
    • syco123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Unfortunately Digg is overrun by 15 year olds.
    • EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't know of anything for IE6 but there is an add-on for IE7 called "Inline Search". It's almost a direct ripoff of Firefox's search. The site is down right now, but I think the address for the add-on is http://www.ieaddons.com/AddOn.aspx?cid=2&scid=69&aid=91754ddc-884d-4e04-a915-2a986cf8e065

      That may not help, but somebody might be interested in it.
  • Pifko, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1This is such a waste of bandwidth. RTF-keyboard shortcuts in the FF help pages you lazy arses!
  • Retuow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5or you just start typing and the quick find box appears with the text you're searching for.. It's called find as you type..
  • TimOgg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Been using this from the beginning. Actually you don't need to press anything to get it started just start typing.
    to activate go to Tools/Options - Advanced/General then make sure "Search for text when i start typing" is selected.
    now when you start typing it will immediately start to work. Use F3 to find the next item.

    Actually the version in Firefox 1.5 was better because it brought the Find dialog at the button straight away without first having to see the quick find bar. (Was quicker to select "highlight all" without having to press Ctrl F)
  • jordandiggsit, on 10/12/2007, -7/+8i wonder if this can get dug down past negative 100...
    • TimRogers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15I wonder if you can shut the ***** up.
  • sicapitan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Hey... wait a minute! When you press the red button mark with an X on the top of a window, the window closes!
  • Slink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm confused, Tools - Options - Advanced - Accessibility - tick "Begin finding when you begin typing"

    Don't even need to press anything first. What's the difference with this?
  • enclave2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Any way to make it like it was in 1.5? I got used to having find pop up when I typed. So much nicer. I don't know why you would even bother with quick search instead of find. Quick search is so limited.
  • jimmyjim, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5lol and this `feature` was in my top 10 firefox hates..... why have 2 different search functions (one with quick find options and one without)??.... keyboard search has only regressed in my eyes since 1.5 :(

    e.g. bring back the search options on / please
    • doshindude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2FF1.5 had it, no idea why they took it out of 2.0

      I was thinking the same thing.
  • robcornelius, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I discovered it by accident. I am a diehard vi/vim user and always type / before starting a search on anything now by force of habit.

    One little bug with it I have noticed. Once in a while I will try to type some text in a text-field and this feature starts off by itself. It won't go away until I clear all my private data. Its probably due to the extensions I have though or some cruddy javascript somewhere.
  • jonathanchong, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I thought everyone knew about this, but in recent versions of Firefox, the search-as-you-type feature is turned off by default.
  • axiomata, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Newest FF nerfed this feature. Check out the FAYT add-on for a full-featured find as you type.
  • Marwood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Excellent, never realised this was available in Firefox, that'll save me a whole extra keypress ;)

    Actually I've been something similar myself in Safari as find as you type was the first thing I missed when I got a Mac. Any Mac users can download the hack here: http://www.nondeterministic.net/hack/fiwt/
  • gagan97, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1WOW :)
  • poet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2If you didn't know about this, you're just new.
  • yahoofrom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5this is news?
    • dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No, as the title claims, it's a "tip".
      http://www.digg.com/about - "News" isn't mentioned on the site's description, Digg isn't a news site..

      Anyway, I prefer using the setting under Options > Advanced > General, "Search for text when I start typing", it's basically the same, but marginally more convenient since it doesn't require the /
      - Ben
  • droiders, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0This is amazing actually. I had no clue it existed, and I'm so excited to use it all the time!!! SWEET JESUS (has nothing to do with this).
  • ropers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2At the peril of:
    (a) engaging in pointless sentimental rambling and
    (b) offending Emacsians:

    I discovered the slash search hotkey on my own not too long ago.

    I had been using vi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi ) on an OpenBSD box ( http://www.openbsd.org/ ) and then started searching for something in Firefox. I knew Ctrl-F, but I somehow thought: Gee, I wonder if it respects Ye Olde UN*X Heritage?

    I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did.

    I continue to use the more feature-rich Ctrl-F most of the time, but I still think it's a really nice touch to have a time-honoured vi convention right there in Firefox.

    My point with this? None. Zero. But it still feels kinda nice and fuzzy.

    :-)
  • hilbertspaceboy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Opera has this feature, but it isn't a memory hog like FF.

    Opera FTW!
  • JeremiahLBurns, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Been using Firefox for well over a year now...and I find this option sometimes isnt' very...accurate. Is it just me? I mean, I'll often do a search on a word that I _know_ is on the page I'm looking at...but I just need to find it...and it returns no results. WTF?

    I'm sure it's user error...I can admit that. But all in all...I like the feature.
  • Elloydo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I never knew about this feature. Thanks for the story reference.
  • franksands, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Quick firefox tip: if you type a web stie address in the text field to the right of the buttons and press enter, the site is loaded!! Isn't that amazing?

    How is this news? And IMHO "find as you type" is easier, has the same functionality and will go away if you don't type anything for a couple seconds.
  • treehead, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1vi.
  • bendig, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0AMAZING! I never even knew this existed.
  • osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yea, use this all the time ... also if you search for a link (which I thought it only used to search for previously) you can hit enter and it follows it.
  • b04155, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1or you could just start typing if you have that option enabled.
  • CatchingtheOC, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1this is cool. i never knew.
  • Hassassin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This made front page? Are you kidding? Are you Snerious? What is this velvet?
  • clickwir, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1SPAM. Damnit stop posting blog spam that features a simple feature list OF SOMETHING THAT IS ALREADY AVAILABLE.
  • doshindude, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1old.

    I knew this a LONG time ago,

    and you can make it so that if you type anything, Quick find shows up.
  • Memnochxx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2People actually didn't know about this? It's not news at all.
  • nickem, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Here's a neat single click that I use. I love it b/c I have a slo download. Middle button click on a link and it opens the link in a new tab. Excellent! Go to the window when you are done browsing the original blog, whatever
  • EvilDude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I didn't realise it disappeared by itself.. I'll probably use it over Control+F because of that.
  • jordan314, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1great, but how do you find again? Often I'm trying to find the 2nd+ occurrence of something in a page.
  • lime45, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I don't know it's because I'm getting older, but I discovered it when I accidentally tried using the VI search command in firefox. I've even typed ":q" in notepad and sometimes at the linux command prompt, when I wanted to exit. Most times it's just annoying that I do that, but in the firefox instance it was actually kinda handy!
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 74 of 74 discussions
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.