OpenSearch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
OpenSearch is a collection of technologies that allow publishing of search results in a format suitable for syndication and aggregation. It is a way for websites and search engines to publish search results in a standard and accessible format. OpenSearch was developed by Amazon.com subsidiary A9 and the first version, OpenSearch 1.0, was unveiled by Jeff Bezos at the Web 2.0 in March, 2005. Draft versions of OpenSearch 1.1 were released during September and December 2005. The OpenSearch specification is licensed by A9 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.[1]
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[edit] Design
OpenSearch consists of:
- OpenSearch Description files: XML files that identify and describe a search engine.
- OpenSearch Query Syntax: describe where to retrieve the search results
- OpenSearch RSS (in OpenSearch 1.0) or OpenSearch Response (in OpenSearch 1.1): format for providing open search results.
- OpenSearch Aggregators: Sites that can display OpenSearch results.
- OpenSearch "Auto-discovery" to signal the presence of a searchplugin link to the user and the link embedded in the header of HTML pages
OpenSearch Description Documents list search result responses for the given website/tool. Version 1.0 of the specification only allowed one response, in RSS format; however, version 1.1 provides support for multiple responses, which may be in any format. RSS and Atom are the only ones formally supported by OpenSearch aggregators, however other types, such as HTML are perfectly acceptable.
[edit] Search engines and software that support OpenSearch
- XML description file
- Auto-discovery of a new search plugin in Firefox browser since version 2.0
- Example of a web page which offers to add a new search plugin using the "auto-discovery" technique:
- the symbol of the currently selected search engine (Google's G in the example) gets blueish. The user can choose to add the search engine offered by that page by clicking the small triangle:
[edit] Wikipedia's suggesting search plugin
- Wikipedia suggests articles matching your entry as you type in Firefox since version 2.x only; this function is not available in Internet Explorer 7.0. The example is shown for the German Wikipedia but is also available in many others.
- Internet Explorer 7
- Mozilla Firefox 2.0 – implements OpenSearch, as well as a subset named MozSearch. MozSearch is not intended for web use, only for Firefox related projects. Extended features from MozSearch are usable in an OpenSearch file with an XML namespace prefix. Features specific to MozSearch include search suggestions, among others. [2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Ogbuji, Uche. "Introducing OpenSearch", xml.com, July 24, 2007.
- ^ Supporting search suggestions in search plugins (HTML). Mozilla Developer Center. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
[edit] External links
- OpenSearch.org – official website, including specifications
