28 May 2008 - 8:39Edit Middle Add-on for AwesomeBar

I’ve made a simple add-on to let you see results immediately when you fix typos or edit search terms in the location bar. The difference from what you get in Firefox 3 is that with this add-on, you’ll see results when editing in the middle.

For example, if you accidentally type “mozzilla” you can correct the typo to be “mozilla” and see the pages you were looking for right away. Or if you type “addons” but meant to type “add ons”. Or maybe you searched for “ginger carrot cake” [dria.org] and want to search for “orange carrot cake” instead.

Edit Middle Add-on
Fixing “midle” typo to “middle” instantly shows results

Download Edit Middle [addons.mozilla.org] from the add-ons website or use the add-ons search from within Firefox 3. “Edit Middle” works for Firefox 3 including those using release candidates as well as nightly builds.

“Very helpful for those with less than 100% keyboard accuracy!” “Search relies on keyboard input and typos are a fact of life; this just makes the smart location bar that much smarter.” - bharuch2, Harlequin99 [addons.mozilla.org]

Thanks everyone who helped test, provided feedback, and reviewed my first add-on. :)

13 Comments | Tags: Add-on, Mozilla

Comments:

  1. Dan says:
    28 May 2008 - 8:48

    Why isn’t this in Firefox?

  2. Karlosak says:
    28 May 2008 - 9:49

    …so that something is left for Firefox 4 to improve upon? ;-)

  3. Sandy says:
    28 May 2008 - 10:14

    @Dan: I would guess because it hurts performance with a big history file…

  4. David Naylor says:
    28 May 2008 - 11:21

    Yes, that should definitely be in Firefox by default. Great addon!

  5. Lee says:
    28 May 2008 - 14:20

    I usually just press the down arrow again after correcting the query. It’s no big deal to me :)

  6. Ed says:
    28 May 2008 - 19:31

    Dan: There are many steps to get fixes and features into a product like Firefox 3, and it’s very close to shipping at this point. Adding features late in the game is discouraged.

    Sandy: Performance won’t be bad. But it won’t be as good as just typing at the end of the location bar. That’s because the searching is optimized to handle new characters typed at the end.

  7. an0n1 m0us says:
    29 May 2008 - 0:57

    Thanks Ed

    Your work is amongst some of the few really innovative elements to Fx. Great to see you are still motivated to continue improving the browser even though you are not able to contribute immediately to native release code.

  8. Peng’s links for Thursday, 29 May « I’m Just an Avatar says:
    29 May 2008 - 7:48

    [...] Lee/Planet Mozilla: Edit Middle Add-on for AwesomeBar. If you have to fix a typo in the address bar as often I do you know that once you do the [...]

  9. Peng’s links for Thursday, 29 May » lolcat.us says:
    29 May 2008 - 14:46

    [...] Lee/Planet Mozilla: Edit Middle Add-on for AwesomeBar. If you have to fix a typo in the address bar as often I do you know that once you do the [...]

  10. Labadida says:
    12 Jun 2008 - 10:16

    I notice that the add-on only is 1 kb big… Could this be made as a userstyle/script instead?

  11. Hide Unvisited Add-on for AwesomeBar | edilee says:
    19 Jun 2008 - 2:24

    [...] out other add-ons I’ve written like Edit Middle [...]

  12. Internapse says:
    21 Jun 2008 - 10:08

    Excellent add-on and no problems when using.

    Thanks Ed!

  13. Enter Selects Add-on for the Efficient | edilee says:
    05 Aug 2008 - 10:09

    [...] update on my other add-ons. The functionality of Hide Unvisited, Edit Middle, and Show Keywords have made it in to the nightly versions of Firefox 3.1, so if you’ve [...]

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