Useful custom searches for using with URLs

[Isildur]

One of the reasons I find setting keywords for custom searches useful (besides the general convenience of using normal custom searches from the URL bar instead of a search box), is because I can then perform actions based on the URL already in the address bar, by just inserting a letter and a space before it. For example, if I'm already at the page "http://example.com/examplepage", and I want to see past versions, I change the text in the address bar to "a http://example.com/examplepage" (because I have the letter "a" set as my archive.org keyword) and hit Enter, taking me to a list of past snapshots.

As I've previously noted, Vivaldi insists on percent-encoding the %s string, and doesn't yet allow POST requests in custom searches (2017.04.17 update: Vivaldi now does allow POST searches), which limits this for some purposes (e.g. submitting a webpage to archive.org for saving in Opera 12 was possible with "http://web.archive.org/save/%s" but is obstructed by the percent-encoding issue in Vivaldi, and submitting to archive.is requires POST), but below are some examples that do already work in Vivaldi, which others may find useful:

View snapshots of a page on archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/submit?url=%s&type=urlquery
(2017.04.17 update: The Internet Archive changed the URL format from the one I originally gave. Use this now.)

View snapshots of a page on archive.is: https://archive.is/search/?q=%s
Save to archive.is (Requires POST method) https://archive.is/submit/?url=%s (2017.04.17 update: This is now possible because Vivaldi recently started supporting POST queries in custom searches. I don't promise this will work forever -- the site currently submits things from its own homepage form using a hidden "submitid" with some random looking value, so I don't know if a valid submitid value will eventually be required. For the moment, the above seems to work, however. Also, because of a current bug, the "Use POST method" checkbox doesn't appear when first adding a search engine entry in Vivaldi settings, so after adding the entry using "Add New Search Engine" and clicking "Add", you must then go back and re-edit the entry, check the "Use POST method" checkbox, and click "OK".)

View snapshots of a page on WebCite: http://www.webcitation.org/query.php?url=%s
Submit a webpage to WebCite: http://www.webcitation.org/archive?url=%s&[email protected]
Note: this may be somewhat slower than saving to archive.org or archive.is

View PDF in Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=%s
or for menubar-less viewing use: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=%s&embedded=true
(Not usually needed in Vivaldi, since the Chromium PDF plugin is nicely integrated into the browser anyway, but this could still come in handy if you want to quickly generate shareable non-pdf links.)

Get Google's cache of a webpage: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:%s

Do a TinEye reverse image search for an image: https://tineye.com/search?url=%s (Although there's also an official TinEye extension to do this via context menu instead)

As always when adding custom searches with keywords, if you add these (by going to Preferences>Search>Add New Search Engine), remember to set keywords (which can each be one or more letters or symbols) that you're not likely to accidentally trigger by actual search terms.

[Isildur]

Surprisingly, someone upvoted the above post despite it having been what I'd think was an almost unreadable mess (due to not having been converted well during the transfer from the old bbcode-using Kunena forum software to the present markdown-using NodeBB). In any case, I'd actually been meaning to update the post for others' benefit. I've now corrected the formatting, and I've updated it to reflect some changes in Vivaldi and the Internet Archive's URL query format.

[Ayespy]

@Isildur

[Isildur]

@Ayespy said in Useful custom searches for using with URLs:

@Isildur

That gave me an idea for another custom search:
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/search.htm?q=%s&preview=entity
(e.g. search for "grin" -- not for a URL, unlike the initial post's examples.)

[duarte.framos]

Sigh, this would be so much easier to maintain if Vivaldi supported Bookmark Wildcards, it would make editing/managing/exporting these a whole lot easier, without polluting your unsortable/unmanageable search engine list.

[Isildur]

@duarte.framos
Yes, there is something to be said for bookmark wildcards.

One wrinkle, though, is that that bookmarks, too, would then need to support HTTP POST method as an option.

Vivaldi recently started allowing POST method submission, if you edit an existing search engine entry. (I've submitted as a bug the fact the "Use POST method" checkbox option doesn't appear when initially creating a search via Settings>Search>Search Engines>Add New Search Engine. I've also submitted a bug report for the fact that right-clicking on POST method forms doesn't yet bring up the "Add as Search Engine..." context menu option the way it does for GET method forms.)

Note that if you enable "Use POST method", it submits everything after the question mark as POST parameters instead. (Even for a single request made over HTTP POST, some pages may actually require URL-passed parameter even in an HTTP POST request. Vivaldi's search functionality can't currently accommodate such mixing.)

[duarte.framos]

@Isildur I've been doing some reading up, I've read about POST method here on the forums before, but until now I didn't really understand or know what it was.

If bookmarks were ever to totally replace search engines (which I would totally support, but understand it may not fit everyone's needs) it would probably need to support POST and GET methods, along with one additional field for search suggest URL.
But I'd just be happy if simple parsing of %s wildcards was supported.