December 21, 2005
@ 01:00 AM

I just found out about Yahoo! Open Shortcuts. This is SICK!!!. Yahoo! has done it again. The excerpt below is taken from the FAQ

  1. How do I use it?
  2. Do you have some shortcuts that are ready to use?
  3. How do I create my own?
  4. How do I manage my Open Shortcuts?
  5. Is there search meta word trigger?
  6. Can I name my shortcut the same name as a default shortcut?
  7. I've got feedback about Yahoo! Open Shortcuts. Who do I tell?
  1. How do I use it?

    Type an ! (exclamation point) followed by the name of the shortcut in the Yahoo! Search box.

    !shortcut_name

    Examples:

    !my to navigate to "http://my.yahoo.com"
    !wsf to search "weather san francisco" on Yahoo!

    For shortcuts that search favorite sites or start an Internet application, you can also type optional term(s) after the shortcut name.

    !shortcut_name term(s)

    Examples:

    !ebay lamps to search for "lamps" on Ebay
    !mail bill@yahoo.com to send email to "bill@yahoo.com"


  2. Do you have some shortcuts that are ready to use?

    These popular shortcuts are available for immediate use:


    Navigation
    !clist http://www.craigslist.org/
    !my http://my.yahoo.com/
    !mysp http://www.myspace.com/
     
    Search
    !amazon http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?mode=blended&keyword=%s
    !audio http://audio.search.yahoo.com/search/audio?p=%s
    !ebay http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=%s
    !flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/%s/
    !image http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=%s
    !mw http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/ourresults?p=%s
    !news http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=%s
    !php http://www.php.net/%s
    !shop http://search.shopping.yahoo.com/search?cop=mss&p=%s
    !video http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=%s
    !wiki http://en.wikipedia.org?search=%s
     
    Application
    !note http://notepad.yahoo.com/?v=161&DESC=%s
    !mail http://compose.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?login=1&To=%s
  3. How do I create my personal shortcuts?

    To create a navigational shortcut, use the keyword: !set with your shortcut name and destination URL.

    !set shortcut_name URL

    Example:

    To create a shortcut named "ff" to go to Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football,
    Type: !set ff http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f2

    To create a common search shortcut, use the keyword: !set with your shortcut name and the query.

    !set shortcut_name query

    Example:

    To create a shortcut named "watx" to search Yahoo! for "weather austin texas",
    Type: !set watx weather austin texas


    To create a shortcut that searches a favorite site or starts an Internet application, use the keyword: !set with your shortcut name and the destination URL. Within the URL, substitute the query term(s) with the "%s" placeholder.

    !set shortcut_name URL_%s

    Example:

    To create a shortcut named "yf" to search stock quotes on Yahoo! Finance,
    Type: !set yf http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=%s

This is extremely useful. I've been wanting a short cut for searching Wikipedia on popular search engines for quite a while. Just for this feature alone I can see my usage other search engines dropping.