134614 - Accelerator keystroke for search engine search

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: UI Events & Focus Handling, enhancement)

Description

[Jesse Ruderman]

Ctrl+E should go to www.google.com instead of opening Composer.  Top ten reasons:

1. Searching is one of the most common things browser users do, so it should
have a simple, easy-to-reach shortcut.
2. Everyone searches the web, but only a few users edit pages.
3. People who edit pages search the web more often than they edit pages.
4. After you go to a search engine, you're going to use the
keyboard next to type a search phrase.  After you open a web page to edit,
you're likely to use the mouse to select the part of the page you want to edit.
5. People who edit pages and also like to use the keyboard for everything will
figure out the Alt+F,D combination for "Edit Page".
6. 'E' is the only letter in both "Google" and "Search", and the only reachable
letter in "search" that doesn't have a common meaning in web browsers.
7. Internet Explorer uses Ctrl+E for Search.
8. Having a keyboard shortcut would encourage Raging and Lycos to focus the
search textbox for me, and would encourage Netscape to make Netscape Search load
with fewer redirects.
9. Composer takes longer to load than Google if I press Ctrl+E accidentally.
10. I'm tired of hitting Alt+Home followed by Alt+1 to search, and I also
keeps trying to use Alt+Home followed by Alt+1 to search while using public
computers.

Ctrl+Shift+F is another possibility.  Ctrl+Shift+F for "search the web" would be
consistent with "search messages" in Mail, but would fail #1.

Comment 1

[:deanis74]

I've been seeing Ctrl+Shift+F in more apps as a sort "power search".  It's Find
in Files in VStudio, for example.  I think that shortcut makes more sense than
Ctrl+E, which doesn't have much to do with searching.

Point 10 isn't a valid argument, really.  You could use Alt+S, W if that wasn't
hard-wired to a Netscape search page.

And shouldn't it go to the user's default search engine, not explicitly google.com?

Comment 2

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

It shouldn't necessarily go to google.com, it should go to the search engine you
selected.

Comment 3

[Valerio Capello]

CTRL+SHIFT+F for a search engine you can choose could be nice.

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

Attachment: patch: adds Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut for Search the Web

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

Taking.

Comment 6

[:deanis74]

Something I've been wondering for a little bit.  Should we put the modifiers in
the dtd as well?  By putting the key in the dtd but the modifiers in the xul, it
seems like we're only going half-way.

Comment 7

[Jesse Ruderman]

Comment on attachment 87700 [details] [diff] [review]
patch: adds Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut for Search the Web

This patch is included in the patch for bug 86063.

Comment 8

[Jesse Ruderman]

Fix checked in yesterday afternoon.

Comment 9

[Blake Ross]

Um, Ctrl+Shift+F currently opens Search Messages in navigator...

Comment 10

[Blake Ross]

Oh, I forgot that Mozilla doesn't have Tools > Search.  Still, the Netscape tree
does, so this fix introduces some problems: conflicting shortcut keys,
inconsistency (Ctrl+Shift+F is Search the Web in nav, but not in mailnews). 
Also, Ctrl+Shift+F generally appears to be Find where it's used: it's Find
Messages in our app and in Outlook Express, and Find in Files in Visual Studio.
 So I'm not sure the justification used here was valid. Ctrl+Shift+F also
stretches the Tools menu, making it look terrible.

I'm gonna reopen this, I think we need some input from UE.  Not that this is at
all critical at this time.

Comment 11

[Mihai Bazon]

How about pressing CTRL-L (focuses the location bar) then type there what you
wanna look for on your favorite search engine then press UP ARROW, ENTER (or
CTRL-ENTER for a new tab/page) :)

This works since ages...  Still, I kinda like this CTRL-SHIFT-F, but I doubt I
will use it.

Comment 12

[Jesse Ruderman]

Conflicting shortcut keys in Netscape: that would only be a problem on the 1.0
branch.

How other apps use Ctrl+Shift+F: all the examples you gave are "find documents
containing", and searching the web is consistent with that use.  Mozilla
consistently uses the term "find" for searching within a document and "search"
for searching for documents.  (Windows XP uses "search for files" while Windows
98 uses "find files", so I think Mozilla is right in using the term "search".)

Making the tools menu look ugly: is that really a problem?  I think View and
Window are ugly, but I don't think Tools is ugly.

Comment 13

[Jesse Ruderman]

Marking as fixed again.  If you think the tools menu is ugly, file another bug.

Comment 14

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

vrfy'd fixed with 2002.09.19.08 comm trunk builds.

when in navigator, accel-shift-F takes you to your web search page.

when in mailnews, accel-shift-F brings up the advanced search msgs window.