Re: Request Nova BBS add easier-to-remember search URL links for Usenet article lookups

Grant Taylor wrote on Wed, 20 Mar 2024 18:13:23 -0500 :

On 3/20/24 02:33, Andrew wrote:

No big deal but I do not understand Grant's suggestion above.
What's a "search shortcut" and which "client" is Grant talking about?

 
Custom search engines (or some nomenclature like that) used to be what
they were called in Firefox.

Thanks for explaining.

That's what I thought you might have been referring to, where in the olden
days of early web browsing, we had "dict word" to bring up a dictionary to
that word.

The problem is, of course, that every person on the planet has to do that,
whereas RetroGuy could just create a URL that mimics the Google URL....

1. This still works, so why not piggyback off of the syntax:
   <https://groups.google.com/g/news.admin.peering> (no longer updated)
2. To piggyback off that syntax, RetroGuy can possible make the URL:
   <https://groups.novabbs.com/g/news.admin.peering> (updated after Google)

I like it because of the intuitive simplicity and URL continuity.
 

Now they seem to be bookmarks with keywords.
 
I have the following bookmark in Firefox:
 
    Name:  USPS Tracking
     URL:  https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction?qtc_tLabels1=%s
Keyword:  usps
 
So any time I type "usps " (trailing space is important) in the address
bar it changes and indicates that it's doing a search and then replaces
the "%s" in the URL (from the bookmark) with whatever I type after the
URL in the address bar.
 
So  you could have something like:
 
    Name:  NovaBBS
     URL:  https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?group=%s
Keyword:  nova
 
So that any time you type "nova news.admin.peering" the web browser goes
to the following URL:
 
 
https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?group=news.admin.peering

Thanks. Much appreciated. I think a better solution is something like this:
   <https://groups.novabbs.com/g/news.admin.peering>

Which is easy to remember, especially as it's similar to the previous
Google Usenet search URL with only a minor change of the domain name.

That's my vote! :)