After writing Presenting Instant Search I thought a bit more about how I use search and decided that it’s a pain to have to move focus back to the text box on the search results page in order to change something. As a solution for firefox users I wrote a greasemonkey script to focus for us.
At first glance Instant search appears to be our answer to Google Suggest Both provide instant results to search queries as the user types. The differences appear in the actual results that come back.
When I first saw Google Suggest I was amazed. Once again Google had shown me something painfully obvious that, as a developer I had never thought about doing. The idea of using basic css to extend a native browser widget had never occured to me. It’s an elegant solution to the problem of try and miss searching. Instead of clicking back in the search box on the next page the user can now simply backspace and try again. Simple and elegant.
I have used it maybe 10 times. The idea doesn’t really work with the reasons why I try searches again. I do that because the results I get don’t match, not because the possible result count isn’t high enough. I also type fast enough not to need auto complete on my search results. Suggest in it’s existing format would have a better chance of making it into my daily tool set if it provided spell checking on results as I type. It doesn’t as far as I can tell.
I hadn’t thought about suggest in months until I spotted Instant Search on next.yahoo.com. Instant search is one step closer towards being my home page. It provides real results without waiting for the search results page. A few of my favorite demo searches are:
Many of the things I commonly look for are now at my finger tips. I can check the weather in my town and the towns of most of my family (weather is a big thing in my family) in a few seconds. If I missed some football on sunday I can quickly check the scores of all the teams I care about. I don’t have to think about a bookmark or click to a different website. Most of it is right here, most of it.
I want my spelling hints! This is a vital component missing from both Instant Search and Suggest. Both services will suggest alternate spellings if I submit the page but they leave me guessing while typing in the text area. Dyslexics like myself constantly need our spelling corrected. It’s not that we can’t spell it’s just that a lot of time signals from our brains come out in the wrong order and it’s very hard to spot in a quick glance.
Letting me get instant results for many queries from the same search box is good. It’s impressive, but I’m ready for the next step. Skip the browser. I would like instant results (including spelling suggestions, please) from my firefox toolbar, thunderbird, messenger, treo, tv, and the stereo in my truck.
Growing up as a web developer it’s not very often that I get to enter the world of GUI applications or be able to write plugins to extend the functionality of existing applications. As more and more applications become dependent on the web for functionality they open up a world to web developers that we have had limited access to before. New applications are co-existing with the web using custom client side javascript objects. We can now write application plugins using languages we have been using for years.
I recently did just that. Yahoo Music Engine (free download) has become an integral part of my daily life. I use it both at home and work. Most of the functionality is handled by web pages that generate javascript to manipulate objects inside of YME. These objects are used to trigger functions like play and download. The API provides hooks for plugins to intercept calls from the application like searches and events related to currently playing music. Using these interfaces I wrote a plugin that runs entirely out of a single html file. It provides an AJAX style interface over Yahoo! News RSS. As the music changes the plugin grabs new news stories from rss and displays them. Check it out, and keep yourself InTheLoop!
If you feel like writing your own YME plugin the docs are very easy to follow and full of examples. If you get stuck or want to help other people join the ymedev group.