Universal Search - Homebrew add-ons 19
As we discussed in prior tips, Universal search is an extremely powerful tool that lets you search for your Contacts, Applications, the web and Google Maps from anywhere on your phone and in a matter of seconds. For those Homebrewers out there, there are also a wide-range of patches that are available to further enhance Universal Search. After the break, we will dive into some of the more popular Universal Search patches that are available to you via webOS Quick Install or Preware.
Note: a "~" indicates that this patch is not currently in Preware. You can still use webOS Quick Install to manually install these patches
Universal Search Command Line (USCL) – by dsevil
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By including one of the built-in USCL commands to your Universal Search, this patch will add a ton of specific website options to search, including (but not limited to) Amazon, Google Images, ebay, IMDb, Yahoo and more. You can also add your own website search options to USCL (details here and a few examples here, such as YouTube, tv.com and fatwallet.com) - You can also perform a variety of webOS actions, including Restarting Luna or Java, Garbage Collecting, turning GPS on/off, or performing some simple math functions without having to open up the calculator
- In the most recent version of the USCL patch, the developer integrated the Quick Event homebrew app into universal search
- You can also create Tasks and Memos from Universal search, even with the option for a "Quick" Task or Memo that will create it without launching the respective app. (Note: Memos requires the additional "USCL Memos Patch")
- Once installed, you can learn all the available options by typing ".help" from Universal Search
KeyToss Keyword Search – by samkim
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Very similar to USCL, this patch enhances the webOS universal search so that you can access over fifty different search tools using specific keywords. Available searches include YouTube, IMDb, Amazon, NY Times and others. - Also includes a search of KeyToss's webOS App Finder, which is an web app samkim developed (customized for the Pre's webkit browser) to search for webOS Apps or News
- Once installed, you can learn all the available options by typing "@help" from Universal Search
SMS Icon for Mobile Tagged Numbers only – by xenoph0be
- This patch will cause the "SMS" icon to only appear for mobile numbers when searching for a contact via Universal Search. This way, you will never accidently send a text message to a landline or work phone.
~Add IMDb to Universal Search – by bpdamas
- Searches Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com)
Hide Twitter Global Search – by Veritas06
- Removes Twitter from Universal Search
~Remove Twitter and add Dictionary/Thesaurus to Universal Search – by balderson
Add Bing and Yahoo / Add Bing and Yahoo and Remove Twitter– by thomascoe
Got any additional patches or suggestions on ways to make Universal Search any better? Let us know!
19 Comments
USCL includes Keytoss functionality.
wow...i did not realize that! even i am learning something from my own tips!
Just think we need to be able to start an app catalog search from US. What do you think? Handy or waste of time?
Definitely handy. I'd love the ability to add different search protocols..like dictionary.com or google images or urbandictionary.com,etc..
Read the article again, particularly the first bullet under USCL. It has a couple links with all the details you need.
The App Catalog application does not provide a way to tell it to launch directly to search results. I'd work on a second patch to the App Catalog app, but for managability reasons (mainly the growing pains I've experienced with the Notes patch) that's not really a road I want to take at this time.
How about remove Wikipedia and add Precentral search?
The next version, whenever it comes out, will have PreCentral (.pc) and webOSRoundup (.wor) builtins. (Good idea!)
As for removing Wikipedia, I'd much rather affect as little stock JavaScript code on the device as needed and let separate patches handle that if you *really* don't like Wikipedia. Sorry.
I have been saying sense the launch of the pre that it would be awesome to have a "Universal Search Manager" app, to easily add, subtract, and reorganize custome search engines that pop up in the web searching options.
Seconded.
I've been waiting more than a year for Palm to add a search feature for the calendar. Please make a Homebrew patch for that! Please!
there is a free app called google calendsr search, if you synch your calendar with google
I like the add yahoo, bing, and remove twitter patches!
I would love to have my emails indexed so I wouldn't have to load the email app to do a search for the right email when all I remember is something in the body of the email.
And so end's our "Universal Search" series of tips! Hope you enjoyed them all
Thank you for the props, sir!
I wish someone would get it to search Memos and the calendar. THAT is something I miss from the Palm OS days.
btw have to search for 'command line' to find uscl patch in preware
after installing uscl on 1.4.5 GSM EU german (2 reboots) and trying to launch .help which did't do anything, the whole universal search is broken afterwards.