How Does Amazon Tell A Browser to Create a Search Engine?

[m***@chromium.org]

Hi folks,

I'm a chromium developer. I recently noticed that Chromium / Google
Chrome's support for opensearch is broken--new search engines aren't being
auto-generated / discovered when they should be. For example, visiting
amazon.com and searching on it does not create a new amazon.com keyword
search engine. It used to.

I'd like to fix this. I'm capable at writing code in Chromium but have
basically no experience in web site development. For the life of me, I
cannot figure out which method in the opensearch spec Amazon uses to notify
the browser to create a custom search engine. I searched the source code
using developer tools (a.k.a. web inspector) looking for "opensearch" or
"link rel='search'" to no avail.

Can one of old hands on this mailing list help me understand how Amazon is
notifying other browsers of the existence of a opensearch search engine so
I can then go about fixing Chrome's support for it?

thanks,
mark

P.S. In case anyone cares, for reference the Chromium bug
is https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=642848

[DeWitt Clinton]

Hi Mark,

Interesting! I don't know if they used to, and recently stopped, or if the
search engine was never dynamically added, but just looked like it was,
because Amazon was hard-coded by the browsers.

Let us know what you find!

-DeWitt

Post by m***@chromium.org
Hi folks,
I'm a chromium developer. I recently noticed that Chromium / Google
Chrome's support for opensearch is broken--new search engines aren't being
auto-generated / discovered when they should be. For example, visiting
amazon.com and searching on it does not create a new amazon.com keyword
search engine. It used to.
I'd like to fix this. I'm capable at writing code in Chromium but have
basically no experience in web site development. For the life of me, I
cannot figure out which method in the opensearch spec Amazon uses to notify
the browser to create a custom search engine. I searched the source code
using developer tools (a.k.a. web inspector) looking for "opensearch" or
"link rel='search'" to no avail.
Can one of old hands on this mailing list help me understand how Amazon is
notifying other browsers of the existence of a opensearch search engine so
I can then go about fixing Chrome's support for it?
thanks,
mark
P.S. In case anyone cares, for reference the Chromium bug is
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=642848
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[Mark Pearson]

Post by DeWitt Clinton
Hi Mark,
Interesting! I don't know if they used to, and recently stopped, or if the
search engine was never dynamically added, but just looked like it was,
because Amazon was hard-coded by the browsers.

I think it must be dynamically added. If I start with a fresh install of
Safari, I don't see amazon listed as a search engine in preferences. If I
visit amazon.com, I also don't see amazon listed as a search engine in
preferences. But if I visit amazon.com and do a search, then look in
preferences, I see amazon listed. Either there's a really intelligent
strategy to decide when to display hard-coded engines (I doubt it!) or this
is being dynamically added.

--mark

Post by DeWitt Clinton
Let us know what you find!
-DeWitt

Post by m***@chromium.org
Hi folks,
I'm a chromium developer. I recently noticed that Chromium / Google
Chrome's support for opensearch is broken--new search engines aren't being
auto-generated / discovered when they should be. For example, visiting
amazon.com and searching on it does not create a new amazon.com keyword
search engine. It used to.
I'd like to fix this. I'm capable at writing code in Chromium but have
basically no experience in web site development. For the life of me, I
cannot figure out which method in the opensearch spec Amazon uses to notify
the browser to create a custom search engine. I searched the source code
using developer tools (a.k.a. web inspector) looking for "opensearch" or
"link rel='search'" to no avail.
Can one of old hands on this mailing list help me understand how Amazon
is notifying other browsers of the existence of a opensearch search engine
so I can then go about fixing Chrome's support for it?
thanks,
mark
P.S. In case anyone cares, for reference the Chromium bug is
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=642848
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Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/opensearch.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

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Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/opensearch.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[m***@chromium.org]

In case it's not obvious from my prior reply, I still would appreciate help
from someone with experience in these things. Chromium/Chrome's opensearch
support will benefit!

thanks,
mark

Post by Mark Pearson

Post by DeWitt Clinton
Hi Mark,
Interesting! I don't know if they used to, and recently stopped, or if
the search engine was never dynamically added, but just looked like it was,
because Amazon was hard-coded by the browsers.

I think it must be dynamically added. If I start with a fresh install of
Safari, I don't see amazon listed as a search engine in preferences. If I
visit amazon.com, I also don't see amazon listed as a search engine in
preferences. But if I visit amazon.com and do a search, then look in
preferences, I see amazon listed. Either there's a really intelligent
strategy to decide when to display hard-coded engines (I doubt it!) or this
is being dynamically added.
--mark

Post by DeWitt Clinton
Let us know what you find!
-DeWitt

Post by m***@chromium.org
Hi folks,
I'm a chromium developer. I recently noticed that Chromium / Google
Chrome's support for opensearch is broken--new search engines aren't being
auto-generated / discovered when they should be. For example, visiting
amazon.com and searching on it does not create a new amazon.com keyword
search engine. It used to.
I'd like to fix this. I'm capable at writing code in Chromium but have
basically no experience in web site development. For the life of me, I
cannot figure out which method in the opensearch spec Amazon uses to notify
the browser to create a custom search engine. I searched the source code
using developer tools (a.k.a. web inspector) looking for "opensearch" or
"link rel='search'" to no avail.
Can one of old hands on this mailing list help me understand how Amazon
is notifying other browsers of the existence of a opensearch search engine
so I can then go about fixing Chrome's support for it?
thanks,
mark
P.S. In case anyone cares, for reference the Chromium bug is
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=642848
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Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/opensearch.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

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Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/opensearch.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.