By Michael Flanakin @ 4:51 PM :: 158 Views :: 3 Comments :: Internet Explorer, (Open), (Unreported) :: Digg it!

One of my favorite features of Firefox is that you can do inline searches without a popup. Not only that, but it supports the standard F3 shortcut, which IE doesn't.

For those who haven't seen Firefox's text search, it's a small bar the is displayed directly above the status bar. As you type letters, it searches for the next occurrence of what you've typed so far. For instance, if you want to find "Michael", you start by pressing "M". Once you do that, the first "M" (case insensitive, unless you select that option) is highlighted with a bright green background. Next, you type "i" and the first occurrence of "Mi" after the current cursor location is selected. This continues as you type the rest of your phrase. This feature is absolutely awesome.

I found the Inline Search add-on a few months ago and am very happy with it. Despite that, there are a few quirks.

1. Pressing Ctrl+F when the search bar is open does nothing. I'd like this to bring focus to and select all of the search text. This enhancement would be very helpful.

2. Clicking the About menu item (on the right side of the search bar) opens the tool's homepage in the window. I was expecting this to open a dialog box. This should either be renamed to "Homepage" or changed to be a dialog box -- I'd prefer the latter, honestly, if not both.

3. Clicking the Options link in the menu goes to a webpage. Again, I expect to get a dialog with search bar options or something. This should also be renamed.

4. Not a gripe, but something I'd like to see added is the ability to support regular expression searches.

Despite my very minor issues, the tool is great. I'd suggest anyone interested in such a feature check it out. Despite their efforts, I'd still like to see this included in the browser by default.

http://www.ieaddons.com/AddOn.aspx?cid=2&scid=69&aid=91754ddc-884d-4e04-a915-2a986cf8e065

After going thru my brief list of issues with the add-on, I realized there was an update. It seems as tho my first issue was resolved; however, now pressing Ctrl+F will wipe out the text completely. I'd prefer it select it, just in case you want to add more to it. I'm glad the issue was partially resolved, but there's still room for improvement.

While I'm at it, I have 2 more issues...

5. When text is not found, the search box bg color is red. The white on red text radiates slightly. I'd like to see a different shade of red be used.

6. Some shortcuts, namely Ctrl+N and Ctrl+W, don't work when focus is in the search box.

I've added these to the site, so hopefully they'll get fixed... someday.