View source for Searching Eclipse Newsgroups With Firefox

For the Firefox users out there, here's a tip that greatly eases the effort involved in searching Eclipse's many newsgroups.

== Step 1. Create a new bookmark ==

1. Go to "Bookmarks | Manage Bookmarks..."

2. Click "New Bookmark..."

3. Enter in whatever name you'd like.  I used "Search EMF Newsgroup"

4. Enter the following (or similar) for the location.  Ensure there is no whitespace (spaces, newlines, etc.) in it.

http://www.eclipse.org/search/search.cgi?cmd=Search%21&form=extended&wf=574a74&ps=10&m=all&t=5&ul=%2Fnewslists%2Fnews.eclipse.tools.emf&wm=wrd&t=News&t=Mail&q=%s

5. Enter a keyword that is short and meaningful.  I used "emf"

6. When you are all done, you should have something that looks like this.

[[Image:Searching_Eclipse_Newsgroups_With_Firefox_New_Bookmark.gif|screenshot]]

7. Click "OK" and organize your new bookmark however suits you.

== Step 2. Use your new bookmark and search the Eclipse newsgroup archive ==

1. Go to the address bar either by clicking there or typing CTRL-L, or use whatever means you normally do to type in an address (like CTRL-T to open a new tab).

2. Enter your keyword followed by your desired search term.  For example if I want to search for Java Annotation, I'd type in '''[http://www.eclipse.org/search/search.cgi?cmd=Search%21&form=extended&wf=574a74&ps=10&m=all&t=5&ul=%2Fnewslists%2Fnews.eclipse.tools.emf&wm=wrd&t=News&t=Mail&q=Java+Annotation emf Java Annotation]'''.  That is, my keyword (''emf'') followed by my desired search terms.  Looks something like this.

[[Image:Searching_Eclipse_Newsgroups_With_Firefox_Use_Bookmark.gif|screenshot]]

3. When you hit enter, you should be taken to the normal Eclipse search site and find the many results to your search query. 

== How does it work? ==

Firefox replaces ''%s'' in any bookmarked url with whatever terms follow it. 

So, a bookmark to https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=%s, stored as keyword ''bug'', can open any Eclipse bugzilla by number by entering, for example, '''[https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=116912 bug 116912]''' in Firefox's location bar. 

Similarly, you can open Ant manual pages using http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTasks/%s.html as keyword ''ant'', then '''[http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTasks/xmlproperty.html ant xmlproperty]'''.