I have updated my YubNub LocationBar FireFox Extension. There was a minor glitch that caused typing local IPs (for router setup, etc) to be interpreted as YubNub commands. This has been fixed. I have also added a new feature. If you have any FireFox keyword ‘quick search’ bookmarks defined, these now work, and are considered a higher precedence than YubNub commands. Thus if you have a FireFox keyword bookmark defined for ‘g’ that does something other than Google search, that will be done when you type ‘g blah’ instead of using YubNub’s command.

My previous YubNub extension suffered from several glitches. While it was useful, it annoyed me enough to get me to research a new format. So I have written a new extension. This one functions a little differently and so I will leave the old one up. This extension modifies the standard FireFox location bar to support YubNub commands. If the entered text is determined to be a URL the location bar will function as normal, otherwise the text is passed to YubNub. No more second bar, no more glitchy locationbar behaviour, just straight YubNub integration. All YubNub commands will work, including single-word commands without parameters.

Download YubNub Locationbar

Version 0.11 has been released which fixes a glitch that broke access to about:config and typeing some javascript: URLs

Version 0.12 has been released which fixes a flitch that caused commands that are passed URLs not to work

Version 0.13 has been released which adds a command history feature. Simply push your up/down arrow keys while in the location bar to access the command history.

Version 0.14 has been released which fixes some minor bugs with navigating to local IPs, and also allows defined FireFox keyword bookmarks to supercede YubNub commands.

Version 0.15 has been released which has some minor improvements to the look and feel of the extension, and also now allows local firefox bookmarks to use switches (using the same syntax as YubNub proper). It also stores up to 50 commands from your command history between sessions now.

Version 0.16 has been released. Support for non-standard URLs (such as those from nic.d. Arrow-key history navigation broke some default Firefox features, so it is now Ctrl+Arrow Key. A hackish integration with Firefox auto-complete history has also been coded. Type y: before a command to have the auto-complete work (or just to force it into YubNub mode).

Version 0.17 has been released which fixes some minor URL resolution bugs.

Version 0.19 (0.18 was released silently) fixes some minor bugs noted in the comments. There is also now an entry at mozilla. Please review there if you find this useful!

If you hadn’t heard of YubNub before, now you have. The basic concept is easy to grasp — typing “g test” takes you to a goole search for ‘test’ and “wink test” takes you to a wink search for test, etc. Although much more powerful than search engines, that’s a good place to start.

If you send YubNub a raw URL it will take you there without processing. This enables one to use YubNub as your location bar directly. Problems with this approach have been that the search box in firefox (where YubNub has traditionally resided for FF users) is very small and does not update on page load.

Solution? Write a new FireFox extension to replace the location bar with YubNub. Done. This is my first ever FireFox extension, so it may be a bit quirky. I’d appreciate feedback and bug reports, but cannot guarentee I can do anything about it, since my XUL etc knowledge is very limited at this point.

I have released version 0.11. Install or reinstall using instructions below, uninstall previous version first if updating. New features for this version include: integration with browser history, display of favicons, display of feed icon/security icon where applicable, alt+k selects textbox, icon on Go button same as standard Go button.

Steps to install plugin:

1. Download the XPI file
2. Open your Firefox ‘Extensions’ window and drag the XPI file on it
3. Restart Firefox