How do I open certain sites in IETab?

September 23, 2007 7:36 AM

I use Firefox. I want to be able to open certain sites in IETab/Internet Explorer automatically. I can do this quite easily if they are bookmarked, but I want to be able to do it every time I come across a link to the site.

Example 1] I'm browsing the web, and I come across a link to foo.com. Normally, when I click the link to foo.com, it will open in a normal Firefox tab. I want to be able to just click the link to foo.com, and have it open in IETab/Internet Explorer automatically, without having to right click and choose "Open in IETab", or copy the URL from the address bar and paste it into Internet Explorer.

Example 2] I do a Foo.com search from the Firefox search bar. I want the search tab to open in IETab/Internet Explorer automatically.

I have been using IE View Lite, which will load the site in IE after half a second, but Firefox still starts to load foo.com before IE View Lite takes over, which I don't want. I want Firefox to never load foo.com AT ALL.

How can I get this functionality? Example 2 is the more pressing problem, if that makes any difference.

posted by Rabulah to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Is there a reason IETab's feature to always open particular sites in IE is not working for you?
posted by kindall at 8:12 AM on September 23, 2007

It does do what it's supposed to - I can make it load yahoo.com in IETab, for example - but it doesn't "take over" the page from the search bar, which would be my nirvana. I can sort of get the functionality I want with IE View Lite, but the Firefox rendering engine is still involved in the process, which I don't want.
posted by Rabulah at 8:26 AM on September 23, 2007

Like Kindall, I'm not sure I get you. IE Tab loads sites directly into IE when I type them in the address bar.

Tools>Addons>Extensions>IETab>Options>Sites Filter

Make sure "Enable Sites Filter" is checked, and that any sites you want to load directly into IE is added to the "Sites" rule.

I'm using IETab 1.3.3.20070528, and it loads sites like www.windowsupdate.com straight into IE in the tab.
posted by gemmy at 11:32 AM on September 23, 2007

Yeah, but it doesn't load them from the search bar*.

If I add Yahoo to the sites filter list, then type yahoo.com into the address bar, it loads into IETab, which is great, but I use the search bar a lot, and searches done there don't trigger IETab to load.

*By "Search Bar", I'm talking about the one at the top right of the Firefox 2.0 window, with the drop down list of search engines that can be used.
posted by Rabulah at 12:01 PM on September 23, 2007

I have experimented with this and with a bit of hacking I have managed to force particular Search Engines to open in the IE Tab. Step 5 requires a bit of familiarity with parameters in URLs and if the thought of editing an XML file in a Text Editor seems daunting then please do not proceed.

Step 1.
Create a new 'Sites Filter' in the IE Tab options that says this:

http://*/*&IETab=yes*

Step 2
Close Firefox.

Step 3
Find the XML files Firefox uses to perform the searches in the Search Bar. These XML files are stored in a directory called searchplugins in your Firefox installation directory. Any non-official Search Engines you add will have it's XML file stored in a directory called searchplugins in your Firefox profile directory.

Step 4
Open in a text editor the XML file for the particular Search Engine you want to open in IE Tab.

Step 5
This next part requires finding a way to append to the search URL a new key/value pair of IETab=yes - but this is tricky because in my experiments I have not encountered a consistent way to do this. It is obvious once you see the particular XML file how to proceed but I can not advise what the method is in advance as each Search Engine employs a different method to build it's search URL. For some you can append the key/value directly to the URL i.e. &IETab=yes (although you may need to use a HTML entity to represent the ampersand character). For other Search Engines you may need to add the key and value using an XML tag i.e. <Param name="IETab" value="yes"/> In any event closely examine the XML file to see how URL parameters are currently being passed and mimic what you see to add the new IETab key with it's value of yes.

Step 6
Save your changes to the XML file and open Firefox to see if these modifications worked.

The Search Engines should ignore the IETab key/value pair you are sending them.
posted by wannalol at 4:38 PM on September 23, 2007

wannalol, you have my undying gratitude! It works perfectly!
posted by Rabulah at 6:04 PM on September 23, 2007