1239694 - [gnome] firefox should have a search provider

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, enhancement)

Description

[Scott Lawrence]

The gnome-shell search bar shows aggregated results from a collection of "search providers". It would be nice if firefox included a search provider, so that bookmarks, history, and the option to search with the default engine, showed up in gnome's search bar.

AFAIK, epiphany is the only browser to have a search provider. See [1] for the gnome bugtracker discussion explaining why that provider shouldn't just open the default browser. The important part (IMO) is that looking at bookmarks, rss feeds, history, and so forth can't be done in a generic manner.

[1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=720245

Comment 1

[Martin Stránský [:stransky]]

We can utilize the DBusRemoteService here to export search results via DBus. 

toolkit/components/remote/nsDBusRemoteService.* provides public OpenURL() method which enables open url by running Firefox instance. We may also implement the search provider DBus methods here to provide the search privider cabability.

Comment 2

[Martin Stránský [:stransky]]

Looks like we need to implement a dearch provider D-Bus interface described at [1] which should be fairly easy.

[1] https://developer.gnome.org/SearchProvider/

Comment 3

[Martin Stránský [:stransky]]

Also I think we should provide the search only when Firefox is running so no external application would be needed for that.

Comment 4

[Martin Stránský [:stransky]]

Attachment: Bug 1239694 Implemenet Gnome search provider, r?jhorak

Implement org.gnome.Shell.SearchProvider2 D-Bus interface and enable it when
widget.gnome-search-provider.enabled pref is set, so this feature is disabled
by default.

Comment 5

[Martin Stránský [:stransky]]

Try: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=0c4b67f7d845231f830eae3a8de807da460635df

Comment 6

[Martin Stránský [:stransky]]

Attachment: Bug 1239694 Added gnome shell system wide config files, r?jhorak

Depends on D54334

Comment 7

[Martin Stránský [:stransky]]

Attachment: Bug 1239694 Use history icons with Gnome shell search provider, r?jhorak

Depends on D54334