How To Search Support Using Search Providers in IE8

ASP.NET Team Blog
12 June 2008

The support center has tons of answers, many with examples, on how to solve different issues. Finding a particular issue can be tricky at first. To help make this easier, the support center now uses the ASPxGridView which allows you to drill down the results by filtering and sorting.

However, there is another method which can help you find answers faster and with ease. Check out this 4 minute screencast on how to use the Search Providers in IE to lookup items in the online documentation as well as the support center.

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What about Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.? If you’re fan of these other browsers, then I’d love to hear how to implement this approach in them.

So check out this short screencast, then implement your own custom provider to search the DevExpress site and finally drop me a line below with your experience.

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Anonymous
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12 June 2008
Jeff Schumacher
Jeff Schumacher

Fantastic idea.  Being a big fan of Launchy (http://www.launchy.net), I've added in DevExpress support and documentation search my config for the Launchy Weby plugin.  Using Launchy, from wherever I am in Windows, I can hit Alt-Space, type DXDocs (the alias I gave to DevExpress docs) hit tab, then type/paste in whatever I'm searching for and hit enter to get instant results.  I've also done the same for the MSDN documentation.  It takes all of 2 seconds to do.

I did a quick post on how to setup this type of functionality using Launchy's Weby plugin here:

www.codingreflection.com/wordpress

Enjoy!

12 June 2008
Charles Russell
Charles Russell

Hmmm...

In my copy of IE7, if I highlight something on a page, I don't get the icon that you show...

12 June 2008
Mehul Harry (DevExpress)
Mehul Harry (DevExpress)

Jeff, Thanks for the link.

Charles, I apologize, IE7 let's you add the search provider but you can't use the right click. IE8 Beta let's you use it and you can run it in an "Emulate IE7" mode.

12 June 2008
richard morris
richard morris

You can make OpenSearch plugins that should work with both IE and Firefox.  eg: the following works with my FireFox 3 client and should also work with IE7 (as it uses a GET request).

Just copy the following XML into a file named DevExpress.xml in your search plugins directory ( Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins here) and you should get a generic search that searches all DX online documentation and even has the DX favicon.

<SearchPlugin xmlns="www.mozilla.org/.../">

<ShortName>DevExpress</ShortName>

<Description>DevExpress Search</Description>

<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>

<Image width="16" height="16">data:image/x-icon;base64,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%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2Fh%2F%2F%2F%2FwMn%2F%2F8AB%2F%2F%2FEA%2F%2F%2FxEP%2F%2F8RB%2F%2F%2FAgf%2F%2FwZP%2F%2F8P%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F</Image>

<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="www.devexpress.com/.../HelpSearch.aspx">

 <Param name="helpss" value="{searchTerms}"/>

</Url>

<SearchForm>www.devexpress.com/.../SearchForm>

</SearchPlugin>

20 June 2008
Mehul Harry (DevExpress)
Mehul Harry (DevExpress)

Good tip Richard, thanks. It's also nice that you got the image in there as well.

7 August 2008

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