TextExpander Tip: Roll Your Own Site Search
Another tip from Tim in Ohio, who contributed Organize your abbreviations by context:
Ever find a website that doesn’t have a search function?
For me that site is Palm Addicts (http://palmaddict.typepad.com). Problem is that I can never remember the URL, and even if I could, that’s a lotta typing.
Google will let you restrict their results to a website by adding “site:domain.here” such as “site:palmaddict.typepad.com” to your search string.
I have a TextExpander shortcut “/spa” (Search Palm Addicts). I enter it in the Google search field and it expands to:
%| site:palmaddict.typepad.com
%| (percentage and pipe character) tells TextExpander to reposition the cursor at the beginning, so I can enter the search string at the beginning without having to manually move the cursor. I type in the word “calendar” and Google shows me all the Palm Addict pages that have the word “calendar” in them.
This would be useful even if a site had a search function. You could skip the steps of 1) going to the web site, 2) tabbing to the search box and 3) entering your search term – just go right to the Google search field in your browser and enter your TextExpander abbreviation.
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
[...] … can be hazardous to your relationship. That’s what TJ, a regular contributor of TextExpander tips, found out. From his blog, in which the TJ household has finally upgraded from dial-up internet: So I’m sitting on the bed with my laptop, and Tracey is working on the Desktop. We’ve been here for several hours — in fact I don’t remember the last time Tracey was up this late. [...]