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All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

mosermichael.github.io

41–50 of 140 posts

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#41
post #10

So these all just directly search for that term on the (usually substandard) internal website search box? I don't get the appeal. I want the bang to show a good/filtered SERP, not load some other site directly. (similar to a `site:x` search on Google I guess.) What I'd really like to use is a search engine that had custom ranking of domains. I'd heavily weigh it to only show Stack Exchange, Reddit, and forum posts. O…

I use `!rust` all the time when I just want to pull up the rust docs quickly, since their search is much more effective when I just want to know about the API for a File or something, though I don't get much more value out of them than that. And I've just learned I can use `!posix` to search the open group, which I'll probably use whenever I get upset with macOS's man pages again.

there is a nice plugin for rust https://rust.extension.sh/

not affiliated

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#42

It would add to discoverability if a reminder of the bang appeared besides the search results (could be under a config setting), that way one could learn the bangs associated with their most used sites easily.

you get a help text in a tooltip (hover text) with the URL of the search engine - when the mouse hovers over the link; I think that adding the url directly to the table entry might clutter up the page.

Sorry, I was talking about DDG itself, not your site, which has great discoverability ;)

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#43

those bangs are really a nice feature. my most often used bang in 2020 unfortunately still remains !g for every time I search something that is related to finding solutions for code / software engineering (or copy paste a problem line from syslog etc). ddg is in almost every case not showing me the most relevant result I want.

I gave up on DDG after giving it a go for a year or so ... I don't know if Google prioritises Stack Overflow or what, but that's what I'm after, most of the time, and DDG just doesn't give me that.

Try Runnaroo.

Stack Overflow search results are directly included on the SERP (in addition to organic web results) for programming queries. Plus the privacy aspect.

Example for "python string match": https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=python%20string%20match

I'm the creator of Runnaroo.

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#44
post #10

So these all just directly search for that term on the (usually substandard) internal website search box? I don't get the appeal. I want the bang to show a good/filtered SERP, not load some other site directly. (similar to a `site:x` search on Google I guess.) What I'd really like to use is a search engine that had custom ranking of domains. I'd heavily weigh it to only show Stack Exchange, Reddit, and forum posts. O…

This is niche, but honestly I search for a lot of magic cards. I get a lot of use out of `!mtg`

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many sites, you can probably just guess the bang without much hassle. The easiest example is IMDb, but my success rate guessing is pretty high. Plus, most people tend to spend most of their time on just a few sites. Knowing one or two bangs is useful enough.

I don't use this, but looking at that list, I would disagree. I just looked up some of the top sites I'd want to use and I wouldn't have guessed any of them Wikipedia -> !w Youtube -> !you reddit user -> !reu subreddit -> !reddits also !reddit points to new version, I'd want !redditold Twitter -> !tweet Steam -> !steme (???) Twitch -> !ttv That being said, if you're on DDG, there's pretty good auto complete on bangs…

As others mentioned, many sites have multiple bangs. Twitter for example, my guess would be "!tw" and it is correct.

Also, if you want to know one of the bangs, "!bang twitter" lists all if the ones involving Twitter.

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#46
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some way to add a big list of search keywords to Firefox without having to type them one by one in the settings screen? I've been trying to figure out how to do this for years now with no luck.

1. Open the bookmarks view (probably Menu → Library → Bookmarks or Ctrl+Shift+B; not sure on macOS). 2. In the toolbar, within the Import & Backup menu button, use Backup… or Export Bookmarks to HTML… . 3. Observe the file format (JSON for one, HTML for the other) and replicate its effects for all the items you wish to add. 4. Restore or import your new bookmarks. I haven’t actually done this for over a decade. I sus…

I hadn't thought about the search highjacking problem but it does help explain why Mozilla is intentionally making it harder to mess with the search engine settings. It does sound like an external program would be the only way to do it...

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#47
DDG should show them at the bottom of their first search result page.

That way, starting a new search with a bang operator wouldn't be such a hassle, e.g. on mobile, where it takes like 7 screen-taps to restart a search with e.g. "!g" appended to it.

I might actually switch to DDG if they had that.

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#48

For ages I've wanted DuckDuckGo to add a "!copy" bang, which acts like the "!" operator (automatically navigates to the first search result) but instead of going to the page, it copies the link to my clipboard. There are plenty of projects I'm familiar with but don't know the canonical URL off the top of my head - when I link someone else to them I have to look up their homepage. This would make this process much fas…

I built a simple node JS server to use as my default search engine. What you describe could be a 2-line change to my code.

My motivation was using Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" without JS. The node app detects the "!lucky" bang, downloads the search results, finds the first link, and redirects to it.

Let me know if it interests you.

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#49
post #47

DDG should show them at the bottom of their first search result page. That way, starting a new search with a bang operator wouldn't be such a hassle, e.g. on mobile, where it takes like 7 screen-taps to restart a search with e.g. "!g" appended to it. I might actually switch to DDG if they had that.

You can add "!g" to your dictionary and initiate it with a quick swipe (e.g. I use "bang" to add it). Cool thing is, that you can add it anywhere in your query - DDG will pick it up

Re: All DuckDuckGo bang operators on one page

#50
post #10

So these all just directly search for that term on the (usually substandard) internal website search box? I don't get the appeal. I want the bang to show a good/filtered SERP, not load some other site directly. (similar to a `site:x` search on Google I guess.) What I'd really like to use is a search engine that had custom ranking of domains. I'd heavily weigh it to only show Stack Exchange, Reddit, and forum posts. O…

I've always been in the "I don't get it" boat with DDG bang operators. When I last tried switching it to my default search engine, I felt like any time I needed to search DDG for "!{bang} {query}" I could have just searched Google for "{query}" and gotten the result I was looking for. In many cases, Google will give even better results for siteX than siteX's own search, because Google is likely to correct for things…

I would call my use of bangs getting to a specific page on another site rather that searching another site. For instance, I get a lot of use out of the wolfram alpha bang, !wa, in those uses I'm not searching as much as I'm inputting a calculation for wolfram alpha to perform and the bang let's me skip a step by typing "!wa {quety/calculation}" into my address bar. Similarly, if ddg is your default search engine, you can lookup a url on archive.is just by prepending it with "!archiveis " in the address bar.
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