Many Tricks
For those who aren’t aware, Google has a real time search engine that can find up-to-the-second results across sites and social media services for topics of interest. Here’s how to set up Butler to search via this real time search engine.
- Open Butler’s main window (via Butler > Customize in the Butler menu, for instance), and go to the Engines tab.
- Click the plus sign at the lower left corner of the Butler window, and select Search Engine (or just press Command-N.)
- Name your search engine (in the box near the top right of the Butler window). (Press Tab when done.)
- On the URL tab, enter this for Prefix: http://www.google.com/webhp?btnG=Search#q=. Enter this for Suffix: &tbs=mbl:1&fp=1&cad=b.
- If you’d like to use real time search via Butler’s input box, click on the Triggers tab and enter an abbreviation. (Press Tab when done.)
- Click the Configuration tab, then click the plus sign at the lower left again. Scroll down and choose Smart Item > Web Search.
- Drag the newly-added Web Search entry to your desired section of Butler’s interface—I do all my web searching via keyboard shortcuts, so I have it in the Hidden section.
- Title your newly-added search, using the box near the top right of the Butler window. (Press Tab when done.)
- Click the pop-up in the Search Engine tab, and select the newly-created Google realtime search entry from the list.
- If you’d like to search via the keyboard, click over to the Triggers tab and set a Hot Key.
- Optionally set any other options.
I’ve been using this for a few weeks now, and it works quite nicely (at least using the USA version of Google; I’m not sure about international real time searching).
Thanks, and—’scuse me if I better ought to post this in the support section—I am a bit confused by step #5 vs. step #10. I *think* I did it as described, and when I press ctrl+alt+shift+G (my Hot Key) I get the little Butler text input window w/ the popup for search engines, Google Real-Time-Engine is pre-selected, but when I enter a word nothing happens, when then I press return, also nothing happens. When using my normal (Google) search engine a browser window opens w/ search results, as expected.
What am I missing?
TIA, Tom
Step #5 would let you press Butler’s activation key (Control-Space), then type your trigger (GRTS or whatever you decided to use) into Butler’s input box, then press Space, type your search term, and press Return.
Step #10 is the more-traditional independent hotkey setup that bypasses the Butler input box and just pops up a web search box.
Perhaps the URL structure is different outside the USA? I’m not quite sure why it wouldn’t be working. For a start, compare your Butler setup for the typical Google search with the real time Google search (where you assigned them to hot keys) and make sure they look the same, other than the specified engine.
-rob.
OK, thx @Rob.
I just repeated the whole procedure, and now #10 works as expected, and this is also how I use Butler web search all the time.
When I try #5, though, and enter the abbreviation I put in the trigger field for the search engine, the abbreviation window doesn’t find it but offers some Golive stuff and more of that, but no Google Real-Time-Search. But well, I anyway use the other method all the time so it doesn’t matter for me.
Thanks for your support,
Tom
Make sure you press Tab to leave the abbreviation field; if you don’t, it won’t work (even though you’ll see the abbreviation listed in the box there).
-rob.
Mh… did it as you describe, I just get the usual list “Best Match”, “Applications”, “Web Sites”, “URL”, “Other”, and “Folders”. Where should I find it? In “Other”?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, is a movie worth two thousand? Hopefully this short clip demonstrates how it works…
-rob.
Thank you, Rob, this method simply doesn’t work here, no idea why, I did it all as you described it. But—forgive me—I’m also too impatient ATM to investigate further, also b/c I anyway use the other method (step #10).
Thanks anyway for your support, Tom