Comments on: Shortening URL auto-complete

Question: Shortening URL auto-complete

grumblebee — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:13:20 -0800

I really like the common browser feature of auto completing a URL request as I'm typing it. But it drives me crazy that, when I'm trying to go to Amazon.com, it auto-completes with http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060557540/qid%3D1087167862/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dsr%5F2%5F1/103-9997594-7563029, which is the most recent sub-page I've visited at amazon's site. Is there a browser out there that will always auto complete with a site's home page -- maybe when you use a keyboard shortcut or something?

By: samh23

samh23 — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:23:11 -0800

Safari, will autocomplete with your bookmarks before pages in your history. So if you bookmark amazon.com, even if you bury it in some sub-folder, the homepage will come up first. Doesn't work automatically without manually bookmarking, but it helps with the biggest offenders. My guess is most recent browsers do this too.

By: jmd82

jmd82 — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:58:14 -0800

I'm not completely sure, but I have the feeling from personal use that Firefox does autocomplete upon how many times you visit each site. So if you always visit amazon.com first, it'll be first to autocomplete.

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:04:52 -0800

I should mention that I'm on a PC, so I can't use Safari. But that sounds like a GREAT feature.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:12:18 -0800

The bookmark trick doesn't work with Firefox, but is use-based like jmd82 says. Because I go to some sites all the freaking time, if I type 'ama' into the address bar, the first link is http://www.amazon.com/, and if I type 'ask' into the bar, the first link is http://ask.metafilter.com/. So, if the main site doesn't show up at the top in Firefox, go to it a couple times and it'll bubble up to the top of the autocomplete list.

By: O9scar

O9scar — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:28:54 -0800

Do you get a menu with possible urls? If not, you sould remove the inline autocompete feature (under Internet Options: Advanced), but still leave autocomplete on.

On my Mac IE will give me www.amazon.com as the first menu choice. I'm pretty sure Windows does the same thing.

By: gokart4xmas

gokart4xmas — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 17:54:19 -0800

To piggyback onto this question, I am actually using Safari. I tried the bookmark thing with the NY Times main page, but Safari still autocompletes with some old NY Times link I visited at some point. Is there a Safari setting that will make it work like samh23 describes?

By: Danelope

Danelope — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 19:34:42 -0800

For recent versions of Mozilla, go to Preferences > Navigator > Smart Browsing From there, make sure Automatically complete text typed into Location Bar is enabled, and click the Advanced Button. In that dialog, enable Match only websites you've typed previously.

As its name implies, the autocomplete will only provide sites you've manually typed (or pasted) into the location bar, sorted by most frequent visits first. Since you'll more likely be going to the root of any site, this will generally be the first and shortest entry in the lot.

As an added bonus, this speeds up Mozilla's location bar autocomplete tenfold, since it has to look through a very narrow selection of sites compared to your full history. No idea whether Firefox supports a similar option.

By: humuhumu

humuhumu — Sat, 19 Jun 2004 00:05:23 -0800

Type 'amazon' into Firefox and then press Ctrl-Enter. It will automatically add the 'www' and the 'com' at either end and send you there...