If you use Bugzilla as a bug tracking database, or use any bug tracking database for that matter, this may be a handy tip. I often have a bug ID that I want to look up and it’s kind of a pain to have to go to the main bugzilla page, click in the search field and then enter the bug id.

I’ve done this for years, but finally decided to find or write a bookmarklet that would open a window where I could enter the bug ID. I began rewriting a javascript function that I found but it wasn’t as slick as I had hoped so I decided to look elsewhere. Then I found the custom keyword approach, which is even better than a bookmarklet and easier to configure.

I already use a keyword bookmark for google, so I should have thought of it sooner. I changed the default keyword of ‘google’ to the letter g, so when I want to search for something on Google I just open a new tab and type ‘g search_term.’

Now I can do the same thing to look up bugs by typing ‘b bug_id.’ It was so easy and slick, I began thinking about other sites and came up with Wikipedia and Answers.com.

It’s very easy to create a keyword bookmark. Just go to Bookmarks, Manage Bookmarks, New Bookmark and enter a name, the URL (replacing the appropriate text in the URL with %s), and a keyword.

So, to add the keyword bookmark for answers.com, I called it Answers, put this URL: http://answers.com/%s and ‘a’ for the keyword.

You can do the same thing in Opera, but you have to edit the search.ini which may be overwritten in upgrades, so be sure to back it up. I imagine custom search engines will be supported in the Preferences eventually. If you’re using Windows and you don’t want to muck around with the file, you can use the search.ini editor.

Update: I spent a long time trying to figure out why my changes to search.ini on Linux were having no effect. I finally found that instead of reading /home/dan/.opera/search.ini Opera8 was reading /home/dan/.opera/locale/en/search.ini. Once I made the changes there, all was well.