I recently posted a request for a Mozilla search engine plugin for the R
java search applet. Having recieved no response, I pursued this myself and
came up with an alternative. I found a "bookmarklet" that was used to
submit searches to Amazon. I modified the code to submit searches to the R
search engine. I tested the following using Firefox 0.9 on Windows 2000.
Create a bookmark called "search R doc" (or whatever) with the
following
text as the "location". (Note, this is one long line)
javascript:(function(){ function getSearchString (promptString) { s = null;if
(document.selection && document.selection.createRange) { s
=document.selection.createRange().text; } else if (document.getSelection) { s=
document.getSelection(); } if (! (s && s.length)) { s
=prompt(promptString,''); } return s; } searchString =
getSearchString('Search R help:'); if (searchString != null) {
if(searchString.length) { location
='file://c:/R/rw1090/doc/html/search/SearchObject.html?'+escape(searchString);
} else { location
='file://c:/R/rw1090/doc/html/search/SearchEngine.html'; } } })();
Useage notes:
0. Modify the path (in the script) to SearchObject.html and
SearchString.html depending on your operating system and R version.
1. If text is highlighted when the bookmark is clicked, the selected text
is submitted to the search engine without any prompt.
2. If no text is selected, a small prompt dialog requests you to enter a
search string. Pressing 'enter' will simply open the search page while
entering a search word will send the word to the search engine.
3. I prefer to modify one line in the SearchObject.html file so that
titles, keywords, names are included in the search. Use this line:
line = line + document.SearchEngine.search (searchstring,true,true,true);
(Note, with a fresh install of R 1.9.0 the only place
"SearchObject.html" i
s used is in lattice's lset.html file). Attention developers: would it
make sense to modify this file in the CVS tree? Maybe there is a
better method for quick searches?
4. The search is a little slow the first time as the java applet loads.
5. Note: Firefox loses hyperlinks when clicking a hyperlink and then
clicking 'back'. This has been discussed on the email list.
6. Sit back, relax, and enjoy! Your mileage may vary, but I like this a lot.
Thanks to the creator of the original "Search Amazon" bookmarklet.
Best, Kevin Wright
