5

I can ALT+TAB to Chrome, then CTRL+T to a new tab, then type my request and hit ENTER, but then when I want to look into the first search result I need to take my hand off the keyboard to click it??

Surely someone can recommend a plugin which enables me to just press 1 to go to the first search result, 2 for the second, etc. Or something like that?

EDIT: This Greasemonkey script offers precisely what I want, and appears to install perfectly well on Chrome - but doesn't work at all :(

Also, I'm using Google Chrome 4.0.249.43 on 64 bit Ubuntu 9.10.

2
  • maybe goosh.org is for you? :)
    – Molly7244
    Feb 11, 2010 at 13:13
  • @Molly Goosh is neat, but I'm after a way to save keypresses. :) Feb 11, 2010 at 13:25

6 Answers 6

6

I dunno if you guys know this yet. But google has introduced Keyboard shortcuts to their searches as an experiment. But for that, you must join their experiment.

After you join them, you can use these keyboard shortcuts in two modes..


Keyboard Shortcuts

Navigate search results quickly and easily, minimizing use of your mouse. Current keyboard shortcuts include:

Key     Action
J   Selects the next result.
K   Selects the previous result.
O   Opens the selected result.
<Enter>     Opens the selected result.
/   Puts the cursor in the search box.
<Esc>   Removes the cursor from the search box.

Accessible View

Navigate search results quickly and easily, with just your keyboard. As you navigate, items are magnified for easier viewing. If you use a screen reader or talking browser, the relevant information is spoken automatically as you navigate.

Current keyboard shortcuts include:

Key     Action
j or DOWN   Selects the next item.
k or UP     Selects the previous item.
l or RIGHT  Moves to the next category (results, sponsored links, refinements).
h or LEFT   Moves to the previous category (results, sponsored links, refinements).
<Enter>     Opens the selected result.
/   Puts the cursor in the search box.
n   Moves to the next result, and fetches more results if necessary.
p   Moves to the previous result, reloading earlier results if necessary.
=   Magnifies current item
-   Shrinks current item
A   Switches to Accessible Search Results
W   Switches to regular Web Search Results

For now, you need to use the Firefox 3 web browser with this experiment. Magnification already works with Google Chrome and Apple's Safari.

6
  • I'm in that experiment! The feature rocks! Feb 11, 2010 at 15:02
  • But I want it in Chrome! :( Feb 12, 2010 at 14:21
  • Wait someday. It'll definitely be available in Chrome. I wonder why they made it work on FF first. rather than their own Chrome. :-\
    – Bibhas
    Feb 12, 2010 at 15:59
  • It's working now in Chrome (5, stable).
    – donut
    May 28, 2010 at 9:19
  • 1
    The Google experiment page is not working as of now (April 2015) Apr 6, 2015 at 20:28
3

You should be able to just simply Tab through the other links on the page (although I've not got Chrome to hand to test with, but have tested with Firefox & IE)

4
  • 2
    That works, but there's 20 other links before the first search result. That's 21 times hitting the tab key! It's much easier to hit CTRL+F, type a bit of the text in the Result Heading, if it doesn't highlight the Result Heading straight away, hit ENTER to jump to the next FIND result. Once the appropriate FIND result (a link) is highlighted, hit ESC to cancel out of FIND mode, then ENTER one last time to activate the link. That sounds a lot harder than it is, but is actually a very fast and functional way to browse using the keyboard. Feb 11, 2010 at 13:21
  • I didn't say it would be a pretty solution, but it's enough to pass the minimum requirements for accessibility :) Feb 15, 2010 at 12:17
  • Holding TAB till you fly past it, then hitting SHIFT+TAB to get back to it seams to be the winning solution at this point. Feb 18, 2010 at 1:15
  • On Firefox, press ' (apostrophe), type to search only among links, and press enter to open the first link that contains the search query. This is much more useful than Ctrl+F
    – Flimm
    Jun 25, 2020 at 9:33
1

KeyboardNavigation is a plugin available for Chrome and Firefox. By pressing alt-g you bring up a small number next to each link on a page. Type the numer and press enter to follow the link. Unfortunately it does ALL the links on the page, so the first search result ends up being number 48 instead of number 1.

1
  • +1 for the avatar. Go watch the Mega Man rap on Youtube. Feb 12, 2010 at 21:10
1

Bibhas almost has the correct answer.

That google experiment allows you to use J, K, and O to select and open a google search result.

The good news is, not only does it work in every browser, but you don't even need to login to google, or install anything.

All you need to do is add: &esrch=BetaShortcuts to the URI of your google search.

You can set chrome to do this by default by:

  1. go into Options, click Manage
  2. under Default Search click on the default 'google' one copy the URL in there
  3. recreate a new one with the same URL (a bit tedious, but they won't let you edit that one...)
  4. add &esrch=BetaShortcuts to the url
  5. set the new one as default

and there you go! your browser now defaults to google with the keyboard shortcuts enabled!

1
  • This link is broken.
    – Flimm
    Jun 25, 2020 at 9:34
1

Although this answer is probably off, I would still mention it because it can do what Dean has asked a lot better, and can do a lot more things. If you've used Vim, and are open to using Firefox, you can try Vimperator for Firefox. I wouldn't say how awesome it is, because if you've used Vim, you already know that. But if you haven't, you should give it a try. The learning curve is very steep, but its all worth it. Its available at http://vimperator.org/vimperator

0

I've solved this problem with Chrome extention: No Mouse Search Navigation

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