Introduction: Personal Search Engine
Feel free to download the attached file.
It is my own personal search engine adapted to be hacked by you :-)
I have utilised the powerful control p5 library to make a basic search engine that you can easily hack to teach it your own commands.
The search engine can open URL's ,Applications and folders with a one word command set up by you. I'll walk you through the setup in the next step.>
Attachments
Step 1: Control P5 Setup
Control p5 is a processing library that allows the use of text fields and other cool controls, it is easy to set up and a useful tool to have so we'll go ahead and download it from:
http://www.sojamo.de/libraries/controlP5/
Drag the controlP5.zip file into the /Libraries folder for your Processing Application to install.
Step 2: Choose Your Commands
Ok so you have now installed the cp5 library ,downloaded the PDE and are hopefully ready to do some light hacking.
Open the processing sketch
Scroll down to the line shown in the step photo
Here you will find an array (list) called 'command'. This contains the names of the shortcuts / commands you would like to tech your search engine. In my example I have used instructables, 123D, YouTube, Photoshop, inspire, office and develop.
Change these to your favorite Apps, websites and folders, **reminder** the name you give the command here will be the word our search engine responds to when we search.
Step 3: Program Your Commands
So you have chosen a few Apps, folders or URL locations to teach your search engine, now you're one step away from having them at the tips of your fingers forever.
Now we teach our search engine where these desired commands are located
Scroll down to the loop void Update(){
In here are the locations of your corresponding searches.
for example, the location stored in command[0] (instructables.com) is opened when I type "instructables" into the search bar this works because in the last step I assigned the word "instructables" in the first slot (0) in the command array.
}
** BONUS **
I have included a section of code that runs all your searches through your applications and opens them if they match. For example if I type chess into the search bar it opens chess.app from my computers default applications.
Step 4: Make It Your Own
I know this personal search engine has the potential for so many directions of development, I invite you to make it your own.
You can easily change the colour scheme by changing the RGB values of the provided colour variables.
You can export the application and set it to open on start up, use it to quickly find hidden folders, launch your favourite apps or even open all of your favorite websites at once.
So, there you go. You have your own personal search engine that is ready to be developed in any direction you see fit. I would love to see some of the versions the instructable community can produce.
Enjoy :-)