#Search engines

Words typed in the address bar that are not an address, and the context menu's Search … for "…", go to a search engine. The engines are a list the user edits; one of them is the default.

#Using them

#Managing them: about:config, category Search

The first row of the category lists the engines: badge, name, keyword, address. Per engine: Make default (the default shows a Default pill), Edit, move up or down (the order of every list that shows them), remove (not the last one). Under them: Add a search engine and Restore the built-in engines (n) (puts back the built-in engines the list lacks). Enter on the row opens the form of a new engine.

The form: name, keyword (optional, one word: @x or x), address with %s where the words go (https://example.com/search?q=%s; the words are percent-encoded, spaces as +). Enter or Add / Save applies it, Escape or Cancel leaves it. Refused, with the reason under the form: no name, an address that is not http(s)://, no %s, a keyword with a space, a keyword or a name another engine has.

browser.search.engine (the row under the list) is a choice of the engines' names; its value is the engine's id. An id the list lacks means its first engine; removing the default makes the first engine the default.

Built-in engines: DuckDuckGo (@d, the default), Bing (@b), Google (@g), Qwant (@q), Ecosia (@e), Startpage (@s), Wikipedia (@w). They can be edited or removed like the others.

#Stored in the profile

search_engines.txt in the profile folder, written at every change (not with browser.profile.persist off: the list then lives for the run). Plain text, versioned:

wren-search-engines 1
# id	name	keyword	address (%s: the words searched)
duckduckgo	DuckDuckGo	@d	https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s
my-wiki	My wiki		https://wiki.example/?search=%s

One engine per line, fields separated by a tab (a tab, a line break or a backslash inside a field is written \t, \n, \\). Ids are stable: an edit keeps it, a new engine gets one from its name. A file of another version is not read (the built-in engines are used, and the file is overwritten only at the next change). Lines that are malformed, and a second engine with an id already seen, are skipped.

Without the file: the built-in engines, nothing written until something changes.

#Profiles of before the list

Before the list there was a fixed choice (browser.search.engine = duckduckgo, bing, google, qwant, ecosia, startpage or custom) and browser.search.custom_url. A profile keeps its choice without anything to do: the built-in ids are the same, and custom becomes an engine Custom (id custom) with the former browser.search.custom_url (read from the profile's preferences although no longer registered: config.user_text); that list is written at once.

#Code

• src/browser/search_engines.odin: the list (Search_Engines, pure procedures: engines_parse / engines_serialize, engines_keyword, engine_validate, engines_add / update / remove / move, engines_migrate), the browser's list sengines and search_url(words, engine = -1).
• src/browser/search_engines_ui.odin: the about:config row and its form, the badges.
• src/browser/context_menu.odin: address_target (what the address bar opens, and the search it is).
• src/browser/urlbar.odin: the search rows, Ctrl+Up / Down, the row of engines.
• Tests: src/browser/search_engines_test.odin; end to end: src/tools/e2e/search.odin.

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