Can you search using GET?

Hobbes

I tried this...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?query=hobbes

But it only fills the field. doesn't do a search.

whats the command?

aidan_walsh

The search mechanism uses POST, which, as you know, hides the data from the user, so filling out the criteria in GET format won't result in a search being done, as you've learned.

Hobbes

Not entirely true.

I looked at the source and it is possible if you know the command to execute.

I created a boards.ie Mozilla plugin. Using it already. No where to host it though, but if the lads want to host/edit here it is...

You also need a 16x16 image file (png, jpg, gif). You copy both files to..

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins

then restart firefox.

<!-- 
 Author: Simon O'Doherty
 Email:  sodoherty@gmail.com
 Creation Date: 2nd Sept 2004

 Boards.ie where all the Irish people hang out.
-->
<search
 version="7.1"
 name="Boards.ie"
 description="Do a search on www.boards.ie" 
 action="http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php"
 searchForm="http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php"
 method="GET">

<input name="sourceid" value="Mozilla-search">
<input name="query" user="">
<input name="do" value="process">

<interpret 
 resultListStart="<!-- RESULT LIST START -->"
 resultListEnd="<!-- RESULT LIST END -->"
 resultItemStart="<!-- RESULT ITEM START -->"
 resultItemEnd="<!-- RESULT ITEM END -->"
>
</search>

<browser
 update="<ADD URL TO UPDATE FROM>/boardsie.src" 
 updateIcon="<ADD URL TO UPDATE FROM>/boardsie.png" 
 updateCheckDays="3" 
>

aidan_walsh

You can either submit that to mycroft, or else just host it here on the site and steal their Javascript for installing it, all of which is in the site.

Hobbes

I uploaded it to here...

http://members.boards.ie/plugins/boardsie.zip

Just unzip the files in the zip to

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins

After that restart Firefox.

ecksor

Can those plugins not use POST ?

aidan_walsh

No, right now all those pugins need to use GET based search engines... I have already written one for ThinkGeek, but its yet to be added to the mycroft collection.

Hobbes

It can't

Btw, is there a good reason to use POST over GET?

aidan_walsh

AFAIK the only differences is that POST hides the passed data from the user, thus making it more difficult to write a program that takes advantage of the engine (such as one of these plugins). The passed parameters aren't shown, but most of these can be seen from the pages source anyway...

ecksor

Hobbes wrote:

It can't

Btw, is there a good reason to use POST over GET?

It's cleaner in this case and you can pass more data via POST from the form. Also, it helps to mitigate any XSS issues.

r3nu4l

Okay, ultimate zombie thread here but it is relevant.

Before finding this thread I was trying to develop a search plugin for FireFox at Mycroft MozDev.

Unfortunately I forgot about the new(ish) Boards.ie search security token. As a result the plugin won't work and I get this:

error wrote:

Your submission could not be processed because a security token was missing.

If this occurred unexpectedly, please inform the administrator and describe the action you performed before you received this error.

Can anyone code a workaround that avoids the need for the security code?

Here's the code generated by MoZDev from the inputs I gave.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
                       xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
  <!-- Created on Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:35:18 GMT -->
  <ShortName>Boards.ie</ShortName>
  <Description>Search boards.ie threads</Description>
  <Url type="text/html" method="post" template="http://boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?do=process">
    <Param name="http://boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?searchid" value=""/>
  </Url>
  <Image width="16" height="16">http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/bie_logo.png</Image>
  <Developer>r3nu4l</Developer>
  <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
  <moz:SearchForm>http://www.boards.ie</moz:SearchForm>
  <moz:UpdateUrl>http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/bie_logo.xml</moz:UpdateUrl>
  <moz:IconUpdateUrl>http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/bie_logo.png</moz:IconUpdateUrl>
  <moz:UpdateInterval>7</moz:UpdateInterval>
</OpenSearchDescription>

samhail

way to bring up an old thread !

I actually come across the solution for this a while ago.
Quick google search says its been around for a while.

try http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?do=process&query=r3nu4l

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?do=process&query=r3nu4l

source: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107955





to answer your question, im not familiar with MoZDev (what is it ? scripts language for client side ? - might look into it sometime)

you could try changing the method to GET instead of POST, and use the solution in my post ?

Probably easier to figure out the correct inputs for the post data.

hmmmm the searchid will be given dynamically from the boards.ie side so you wouldnt put it in from a different server.
Try having the template as http://boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php instead of with the "?do=process" at the end.

r3nu4l

Cheers Samhail, The MozDev is actually a Mycroft project and it's short for Mozilla Development (I think ).

This is the form I used when trying to create the FireFox plugin. I'm not sure how much you can mess around with it as it follows a set of rules.

Maybe you or someone else here could have a go and see if you could create one?

/and yes, it was a big gravedig based on my use of the boards.ie search function but as boards.ie has now implemented a security step, the old one developed by Hobbes probably doesn't work anymore :shrugs: