For those who would like to search Google and other websites from the address bar in Chimera, try this excellent tip from eFritz.net. According to the site, it only works with the latest builds, and the Chimera team recommends that the Dec 20th, 2002 nightly build should supercede earlier versions. This is a direct quote from eFritz:

Make a new bookmark, give it a name, and change the URL [to] http://www.google.com/search?q=%s in the Bookmarks Sidebar. Type a keyword like 'g' or 'google' into the keyword field. Now you can search Google by typing in 'g [search terms]' or 'Google [search terms]' or whatever.

In other words, select the bookmark you want in the bookmarks drawer and name it something descriptive (like "Search Google"), press command-I, and in the "Location" field of the Get Info panel, append the search string "/search?q=%s" (without quotation marks) to the URL, so "http://www.google.com" now reads "http://www.google.com/search?q=%s". Enter any keyword you like in the "Keyword" field, now when you type that keyword, followed by a search term in the address bar, you'll be auto-magically transported to the Google results page for that term, without first having to go to the Google page. For instance, I can type "goog Macintosh" to search for Mac-related stuff. Very cool.

[Editor's note: There's a previous hint on Google and Chimera, but this hint offers a different method, and expands on it, as you can see if you read the rest of the article, so I felt it was worth posting on its own merits.]

I experimented a bit with the URL's for other search sites and discovered that some use the same search syntax, so now I have a bookmarks folder containing "Search Lycos", "Search AltaVista", "Search AlltheWeb" etc., each of which can be called up with a keyword and search term ("lyc Apple", "av OS X", "atw Jaguar").

Now comes the fun part: it also works on some other sites, notably AddAll and Powell's, for used books, Gracenote (formerly CDDB), for music searches, and with a little editing, (Thank You, God!) VersionTracker.

The search string for VersionTracker's OS X section is

http://www.versiontracker.com/mp/new_search.m
?productDB=mac&mode=Quick&OS_Filter=MacOSX&search=%s

[Shown on two lines; enter on one line with no added spaces!]

My favorite so far is Dictionary.com, to which I assigned the keyword "define", so I can type "define verbiage" in the address bar and instantly come up with "pompous array of words". Kinda like this hint.

eFritz also has lots of other wonderful hints, like how to make your Address Bar rounded, like OmniWeb (needs Developer's Tools). I did just that, and along with some custom toolbar widgets I created with Aquatint, Chimera's toolbar now looks as elegant as OmniWeb's (I find the Chimera toolbar widgets sort of cheesy looking).