Search pages in Firefox with just one key
Categories: Information Technology, Internet, UNIXSo here’s a nice little Firefox easter egg for vi users:
In Firefox (at least version 2.0.0.6 on the PC, I haven’t confirmed this on others) you can search for text by simply typing a slash (/). As long as you’re not in a text entry box the / character will open up the find dialog box just like control-f would.
For those of you who don’t understand the significance of this, in the popular UNIX command line text editor vi you search for text by typing /string to find. This is typical of how vi works: powerful, simple commands which are rarely obvious.
4 Responses to “Search pages in Firefox with just one key”
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Steve W Says:
August 9th, 2007 at 4:44 amI can confirm that this works with Firefox 2.0.0.6 on Mac OS X. Cheers!
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blake Says:
August 9th, 2007 at 11:10 amOn web “pages” that do not capture keystrokes for application interface purposes, you can also just start typing as long as you are not focused on a text input field on the page or in the browser. I frequently find myself doing this on a web page after I have followed a Google search result.
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just jon Says:
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:40 pmI’m fairly certain that this “easter egg” has been available in FireFox and Mozilla since the beginning.
I’m sure it’s in the documentation somewhere, I have no idea where I found out about it — I’ve been doing it for years..
jon
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Dave Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 12:40 pmWow! Awesome. Love the connection with vi. However, I prefer to check the box under
tools -> options -> advanced -> general -> accessibility -> “Search For Text When I Start Typing”This has to be enabled, so if you’re like me and you frequent the open-access computer labs at someplace like a university, it won’t work right off the bat. So the ‘/’ is a great tip.
