I’ve been playing around with IBM Connections search recently and discovered that you can add the ability to search for content stored in IBM Connections directly from your browser by using the URL that IBM Connections uses for Advanced Search:
https://<your connections url>/search/web/search?personalOnly=false&components=&component=&query=<your query>&tag=&nonperson=&person=&fieldvalue=
e.g.
https://greenhouse.lotus.com/search/web/search?personalOnly=false&components=&component=&query=test&tag=&nonperson=&person=&fieldvalue=
Instructions for Chrome
1. Select Chrome -> Preferences -> Basic -> Search -> Manage Search Engines
2. Scroll to the bottom of your Other search engines list and enter values for the Description, Keyword and Search URL, e.g.
Description: Greenhouse
Keyword: green
URL: https://greenhouse.lotus.com/search/web/search?personalOnly=false&components=&component=&query=%s&tag=&nonperson=&person=&fieldvalue=
NB: the value for the query parameter is %s as this is the value that Chrome will substitue for the search term you enter when you use the search.
Now if you type green followed by a <SPACE> in your Chrome address bar the bar will change to:
and you can type your search term and hit <ENTER> to search Greenhouse Connections content without having to visit Connections first. E.g. green<SPACE>test<ENTER> will search Greenhouse for all Connections content containing the word test.
You can use whatever you want for the Keyword in your Chrome search preferences and if you have access to more than one Connections implementation you can add as many search engines as you wish, just using a unique Keyword for each implementation and changing the URL to match the relevant implementation, e.g.:
https://my.connections.com/search/web/search?personalOnly=false&components=&component=&query=%s&tag=&nonperson=&person=&fieldvalue=
Instructions for Firefox
In theory you should be able just log in to Connections and right-click in the Connections search box to select “Add a Keyword for this Search” and/or “Add to Search Bar”, but while these do add options for searching Connections to Firefox, for some reason the searches never return any results. Fortunately adding these options in manually does work and here’s how to add them:
Adding Connections to the Firefox Search Box
The most reliable way I found of adding Connections search to the Firefox search box and have it return results was to create an OpenSearch description file and install this in Firefox’s searchplugins folder. An OpenSearch description file is an XML file that is used to describe a search engine so that it can be used by client search applications and an example of a description file for searching IBM Connections on Greenhouse is given below:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
<ShortName>Connections Search</ShortName>
<Description>Greenhouse IBM Connections Search</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<Image width="16" height="16" type="image/png">data:image/png;base64,imageData...</Image>
<Url type="text/html" method="post" template="https://greenhouse.lotus.com/search/web/search">
<Param name="personalOnly" value="false"/>
<Param name="components" value=""/>
<Param name="component" value=""/>
<Param name="tag" value=""/>
<Param name="nonperson" value=""/>
<Param name="person" value=""/>
<Param name="fieldvalue" value=""/>
<Param name="query" value="{searchTerms}"/>
<Param name="ei" value="UTF-8"/>
</Url>
<moz:SearchForm>https://greenhouse.lotus.com/search/web/search</moz:SearchForm>
</OpenSearchDescription>
To adapt the description file for your Connections implementation just change the values in bold to the relevant values for your implementation and save the file with a meaningful filename (e.g. connections-search.xml) in your <Firefox Installation Directory>/searchplugins/ folder. Examples of default installation directories on various operating systems can be found at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installation_directory
A complete OpenSearch description file for searching IBM Connections on Greenhouse, including base64 data for a thumbnail image, can be downloaded here. Save the connections-search.xml file to your <Firefox Installation Directory>/searchplugins/ folder and restart Firefox.
After installing the OpenSearch descriptor file into your copy of Firefox you should now have an option for searching Connections from your Firefox search box:
You can also make OpenSearch descriptor files available for users to easily add to their Firefox browsers by uploading the XML to the web and adding an embedded link to the <head> of your web page:
<link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="<searchTitle>" href="http://www.example.com/Provider.xml">
Adding Connections Search as a Keyword
This used to be easier to add in earlier versions of Firefox when you were given an option to provide a Keyword when you bookmarked a page, but that option seems to have disappeared in favour of adding tags to your bookmarks. You can still add Keywords to use as search shortcuts, but it now takes a few extra steps:
1. Copy the following URL into your Firefox address bar, substituting greenhouse.lotus.com for the Connections implementation you wish to add as a search:
https://greenhouse.lotus.com/search/web/search?personalOnly=false&components=&component=&query=test&tag=&nonperson=&person=&fieldvalue=
2. Select Bookmarks -> Bookmark This Page and give it a meaningful name, e.g. Greenhouse Connections Search
3. Select Bookmarks -> Show All Bookmarks -> Recently Bookmarked and select the bookmark you just added
4. Edit the URL and replace “query=test” with “query=%s”, e.g.
https://greenhouse.lotus.com/search/web/search?personalOnly=false&components=&component=&query=%s&tag=&nonperson=&person=&fieldvalue=
5. If the Keyword field is not shown click the Down button to the bottom left of the Tags field to display the Keyworld field
6. Enter a relevant Keyword that you wish to use as a shortcut for this search, e.g. green
Now you should be able to enter your Keyword followed by a <SPACE> and your search term directly in the Firefox address bar, e.g. green<SPACE>test<ENTER>:
Instructions for Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer also uses OpenSearch to add search engines to its search providers, but it’s a little bit fussier than Firefox about the format of the file you provide. An example of an OpenSearch descriptor file for Connections on Greenhouse is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
<ShortName>Connections Search</ShortName>
<Description>Greenhouse IBM Connections Search</Description>
<Url type="text/html" template="https://greenhouse.lotus.com/search/web/search?personalOnly=false&components=&component=&query={searchTerms}&tag=&nonperson=&person=&fieldvalue=" />
</OpenSearchDescription>
Note that you provide all of the URL parameters directly in the <Url> element rather than providing separate <Param> elements and because all of the parameters are now provided in the <Url> element they need to be escaped with & Internet Explorer also does not like the method=”post” attribute as part of the <Url> parameter, but it works without this attribute. Again you substitute the values in bold for the values that are relevant for the Connections implementation that you wish to add as a provider.
Once you have created your OpenSearch descriptor file (an example is available for you to download here) you can make it available for users to install by uploading your XML file to the web and either:
Creating a button
<INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="Add Greenhouse Connections Search Provider" onClick='window.external.AddSearchProvider("http://www.example.com/Provider.xml");'>
Clicking the button below in Internet Explorer will add a search provider using the OpenSearch descriptor file available at http://www.networkedcollaboration.com/connections-search-ie.xml
or
Adding an embedded link element within the <head> of a web page
<link title="My Provider Name" rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="<searchTitle>" href="http://www.example.com/provider.xml">
After installing the search provider into Internet Explorer you should now have an option to search Connections from IE’s search bar:
Providing ways for users to add Connections search to their browsers should make it easier for people to search and engage with content that is stored in your Connections implementations so I hope you find this useful. If you have any other tips or shortcuts for adding search to different browsers please feel free to drop me a line via the comments.
Related links:
- OpenSearch
- Chrome – Manage search engine options
- Creating OpenSearch plugins for Firefox
- MSDN AddSearchProvider Method
- The data: URI kitchen – for generating base64 image data
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