How do you make a new search engine in Google Chrome if the search term has to be a POST variable?
I tried translating the POST data into a GET querystring with the %s placeholder but this didn't work.
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Why don't you use google search api instead ? – Piotr Kula Jan 23 '12 at 22:00
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Try javascript: URL
I managed to get what I want with this (pretty nasty indeed) workaround: a javascript: URL that creates and immediately submits the form.
This means, when you define your search engine, instead of a URL like this:
http://www.example.com/search?term=%s
you would use this URL/code:
javascript:document.write('<form name="f" action="http://www.example.com/search" method="POST"><input type="hidden" name="term" value="%s"></form><script>f.submit();</script>');
Since it'll most likely be a pretty long string it's better to prepare it in a text editor and then copy-paste it into the URL bar.
Example: This is the search URL for an Italian-English dictionary:
javascript:document.write('<form name="f" action="http://dizionari.repubblica.it/cgi-bin/inglese/find" method="POST"><input type="hidden" name="lemma" value="%s"><input type="hidden" name="sez" value="ita"></form><script>f.submit();</script>');
And here the same thing again, but with the single line manually reformatted into multiple lines to make it easier to read and understand:
document.write(
'
<form
name="f"
action="http://dizionari.repubblica.it/cgi-bin/inglese/find"
method="POST"
>
<input
type="hidden"
name="lemma"
value="%s"
>
<input
type="hidden"
name="sez"
value="ita"
>
</form>
<script>
f.submit();
</script>
'
);
P.S. Unfortunately, this method doesn't work when performing search from empty "New Tab" page. This can be fixed by installing "Ultimate New tab" extension.
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Ingenious. By the way, I feel this solution works with most "New Tab" extensions, such as chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-google-ea/… – bers Jan 16 '18 at 8:03
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Are there any updates to this? Do New Tab extensions still work for this task? – KOVIKO Mar 14 '20 at 13:05
First you need to host page with this PHP code:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<form name="f" action=""<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_GET['action']); ?>" method="POST">
<input type="hidden" name="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_GET['inputname']); ?>" value=""<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_GET['inputvalue']); ?>">
</form>
<script>f.submit();</script>
</body>
</html>
Then put in search url:
http://yourwebsite.com/filename.php?action=http://sitetosearch.com/search.php&inputname=query&inputvalue=%s
(replace urls, filenames and input name to your data)
For example (search on http://fansubs.ru/search.php via host http://webercom.ru/):
http://webercom.ru/post.php?action=http://fansubs.ru/search.php&inputname=query&inputvalue=%
I have converted @etuardu's solution into this one, not using document.write(), if that's what you prefer:
javascript:f=document.createElement('form');f.method='post';f.action='http://www.example.com/search';i=document.createElement('input');i.name='term';i.value='%s';f.appendChild(i);document.body.appendChild(f);f.submit();
