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Introduction:

Overview:

You can view the source-code for Mozilla's core search component via LXR.

Using JavaScript to add new Search Engines

function addEngine()
{
  if ((typeof window.sidebar == "object") && (typeof window.sidebar.addSearchEngine == "function"))
  {
    window.sidebar.addSearchEngine(
      "http://www.mozilla.org/projects/search/mozilla.src", /* engine URL */
      "http://www.mozilla.org/projects/search/mozilla.gif", /* icon URL */
      "mozilla.org",                     /* engine name */
      "Web" );                        /* category name */
  }
  else
  {
    alert("Mozilla M15 or later is required to add a search engine.");
  }
}

Implementation - How it Works

You should become familiar with Apple's technote on Sherlock files. Mozilla currently supports version 1.3 of the "Sherlock 2" specification with the exception of "LDAP" support.

Mozilla Extensions - additions to the Sherlock specification

# Netscape Search - Sherlock Plug-in
<SEARCH
  name="Netscape"
  description = "Netscape Search"
  method="GET"
  action="http://search.netscape.com/cgi-bin/search"
  update="http://www.someurl.com/test.src.hqx"
  updateCheckDays="3">
<INPUT NAME="search" user>
<INTERPRET
  browserResultType = "category"
  bannerStart="<!--AD_TAG VENDOR=AOL WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60-->"
  bannerEnd="<!--/AD_TAG-->"
  resultListStart = "Groups of reviewed web sites related to your search term."
  resultListEnd = "Web sites reviewed and categorized by a team of editors."
  resultItemStart = "<LI>"
  >
<INTERPRET
  browserResultType = "result"
  bannerStart="<!--AD_TAG VENDOR=AOL WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60-->"
  bannerEnd="<!--/AD_TAG-->"
  resultListStart = "Web sites reviewed and categorized by a team of editors."
  resultItemStart = "<LI>"
  >
</SEARCH>

<BROWSER
    alsomatch="http://search.netscape.com/search.tmpl"
    update="http://www.someurl.com/test.src"
    updateIcon="http://www.someurl.com/test.gif"
    updateCheckDays="3">

This is an excellent example as it demonstrates usage of multiple <INTERPRET> tags (newly allowed by the "Sherlock 2" specification) as well as Mozilla extensions (in bold-red) to the Sherlock specification.

In every <INTERPRET> section, a "browserResultType" attribute has been added which can be used to specify the "type" of search result that is being used. There are currently two defined types: "category" and "result" (the default type, if unspecified).

"category" types will be displayed in the "Search" sidebar panel with a folder icon, while "result" types will be displayed in the "Search" sidebar panel with the branding icon/image for the search engine.

The <BROWSER> section allows a "alsomatch" attribute to be specified. Along with the "action" attribute in the <SEARCH> section, the URLs are matched against the current HTML page being displayed in the context area of the browser window to determine if the HTML is for a search result and, if so, is used to display abbreviated search results in the sidebar "Search" panel. The "alsomatch" attribute comes in handy if a URL re-direct is being used in the "action" attribute, for example.

New for Mozilla M17:

Also, the <BROWSER> section adds "update", "updateIcon" and "updateCheckDays" attributes. While the specification defines a "update" attribute in the <SEARCH> section, unfortunately it is required to be a Macintosh-specific, binhex'ed file (and the filename must end with ".src.hqx"). To be platform-agnostic, Mozilla allows a URL to the text-only, non-binhexed ".src" search file to be specified via the "update" attribute in the <BROWSER> section instead (which MUST end with ".src"), along with a reference to an image via the "updateIcon" attribute (which must be one of the supported image formats) in the <BROWSER> section. For consistency, Mozilla also checks for a "updateCheckDays" attribute in the <BROWSER> section which specifies how many days to check for changes to the search file.

If none of these attributes are specified in the <BROWSER> section, Mozilla WILL look at the "update" attribute in the <SEARCH> section and, if it ends with ".src.hqx", Mozilla will strip off the ".hqx" and use that as the URL to check. So, for example, if <SECTION update="http://www.someurl.com/test.src.hqx"> is specified, Mozilla will check the URL "http://www.someurl.com/test.src" (notice that the .hqx is removed). By doing this, Mozilla allows a web site to provide BOTH a binhex'ed file as well as a text-only file to be specified so that both the Macintosh as well as Mozilla can use the search file(s). [Note: By doing this, it is the responsibility of the web site to keep both files in sync.]

Tracking

Search engines often want the ability to "track" searches through their service. To accomplish this, one way is to track the number of hits to the URL specified in the "action" attribute in the <SEARCH> section. If necessary, that URL can even point to a HTTP re-direct page, as long as the "alsomatch" attribute in the <BROWSER> section contains the "final" destination URL [so that if a user goes directly to the "final" URL (for example, by typing in the URL directory or by clicking on a link that takes them there), the Sherlock file in question will still "match" so that the search sidebar panel is able to display an abbreviated list of results for the user's convenience].

Given the above example for the search file used to Netscape's Netcenter search engine at "http://search.netscape.com/", you'll notice that the "action attribute is action="http://search.netscape.com/cgi-bin/search". If one wanted to use the HTTP re-direct mechanism for page counting (while still having a distinct count of the number of hits directly to that URL), the "action" attribute could be changed to a HTTP redirect page such as action="http://info.netscape.com/fwd/sidb_ns/http://search.netscape.com/cgi-bin/search" and modifying the "alsomatch" attribute to contain the final destination URL, i.e. alsomatch="http://search.netscape.com/cgi-bin/search"

Note: The "alsomatch" attribute in the <BROWSER> section may contain several URLs; separate each with a single space. This comes in handy for complex search engines which have multiple URLs resolve to a final distinct URL.

In the multi-engine search scenario, due to privacy issues it is not possible for a search engine to discover information sent to any other search engine. For example, if a user chooses to do a multi-engine search using search engines "A" and "B", engine "B" can not discover that the user also searched engine "A" at the same time. However, it is possible to differentiate a single-engine search from a multi-engine search in that the HTTP request sent to the server(s) in question will have an additional HTTP header of "MultiSearch: true".

Common Problems - what can go wrong and how to fix it

Additional Reference(s):