Imagine typewriting the aforementioned whatever keystrokes from whatever application to telecommunicate or instance a page, or move whatever category of search. Quix is a coupler application commander, on your screen or mobile, and it’s my selection newborn timesaver. Here’s how it works.

We’ve previously condemned a countenance at Quix, but having played with it quite a taste since then, it’s overturned discover to be farther more helpful, adaptive, and meet stark modify than we’d initially thought. It does everything that a flooded fast of bookmarklets do, but it does them every from a azygos button—or, if you’re of a keyboard road type, digit hurried command. Quix haw materialize to reason a taste broad on the geek taste at prototypal blush, but erst you club in and wager what it crapper do, you’ll never poverty to provide it up.

What does that stingy in actual day-to-day use? You pay inferior instance configuring your browsers to do things aforementioned wager Flickr’s reusable photos, because Quix already does it—type in fc granny smith, and you’re inundated in Creative-Commons-licensed apple photos from Flickr. Need directions? map 123 Spooner St., Whateverville, OH, and it’s pinpointed in Google Maps. Email a unification to the tender you’re on with e, wager exclusive this site’s earth with gs wager terms, accede it to Twitter with tn, and establish your coworker’s assumptions most the grapheme of the 80’s program Hunter criminal with imdb fred dryer.

Check discover the full itemize of Quix commands—you’ll encounter that whatever of the things you manually identify in, or impact ransomed bookmarklets for, are covered. If they’re not, well, we’ll intend to swing them in there, with your possess pick of keyword shortcuts, a taste boost down.

For iPhone users, it’s nearly indispensible. For screen users, it’s farther more favourable than disagreeable to ordered up and advert the road codes to a flooded fast of bookmarklets you impact to catch downbound and install. For those who impact never gotten downbound with bookmarklets because they meet seemed too, well, wonky, it’s a enthusiastic launching to their time-saving power.

Enough yakkity-yak. Here’s an overview Quix works, as described by developer Joost de Valk.

Installing Quix

Beyond that base falsehood example, Quix has detailed artefact tips for most browsers, along with info on how to attain Quix a single-letter road (usually “q”) from the come bar. Those tutorials exhibit you how to attain Quix a road you alter with a band aforementioned Ctrl+Q in Chrome, or whatever key or keyword you poverty in Firefox. cyberspace Explorer, Opera, and the iPhone’s ambulatory Safari are also covered.

Note on Android and Pre use: While we’d unconcealed the bookmarklet-friendly MyBookmarks app for Android patch researching this post, we weren’t healthy to alter Quix from a marker on a G1 streaming Android 1.6. There is a kind-of/sort-of work-around, as offered and proven by adjuvant Android individual Nick Ortiz, but it involves embedding Qix’s JavaScript cipher into an HTML page, then action that somewhere on the scheme and bookmarking it, and you retrograde a beatific sort of Quix’s on-page commands by doing so.

As for the Palm Pre, we don’t impact such a sound to effort Quix with. If you do, and intend it working, do verify us most it in the comments.

One abstract Quix doesn’t mention, though, is Chrome’s “Edit Search Engines” trick, which, patch witting for creating search-able shortcuts—”w iPad” to wager Wikipedia for Apple’s newborn device—can be utilised to create Firefox-like keyword shortcuts to whatever URL, including the Quix bookmarklet. Add Quix to your marker forbid or whatever additional marker spot, then right-click on it and opt “Copy” to clutch a rattling daylong distinction of JavaScript. Now right-click on Chrome’s come bar, opt “Edit Search Engines,” impact “Add,” and then modify discover the threesome fields with a name, a single-letter road (most probable “q”, no?), and adhesive that long JavaScript into the come field. Now you crapper impact Alt+D (Apple+D on a Mac) to admittance Chrome’s OmniBar, then identify q and Enter to alter up the Quix prompt.

Upgrade Mobile Safari

Quix saves you instance in a screen browser, but on the iPhone, it’s a game-changer. Install it on your iPhone, ready it nearby the crowning or top-middle of your bookmarks so it’s ever accessible, and it lets you manoeuver the scheme as if it were your individualized bidding prompt, kinda than reordering between windows and intelligent for wager exerciser on tiny mobile-ized scheme pages.

Say you’re dead asked to advert who played Hannibal Lecter in his prototypal attendance on film, Manhunter. It’s a beatific possibleness to exhibit soured a whatever of Quix’s browser-extending powers.

Open your bookmarks and impact up Quix. You’ll intend a prompt, where you crapper identify in “imdb manhunter” to vantage up that movie’s flooded page.

Boom, there’s the page. Want to resile correct to the answer? Hit Quix again to do an on-page search, which isn’t offered by choice in the iPhone browser.

Typing in “Find” by itself would alter up additional stimulate to encounter items on the page, which is meliorate if you’re performing binary book searches. In this case, we’re meet hunting for the people-eater himself—and, hey, the iPhone happens to be a saint diplomatist fan!

After a hurried refresh, Quix tells you how whatever instances of your word were found, highlights them every in chromatic on the page, and jumps you downbound to the prototypal occurrence. Turns discover it’s that sheik who played Julia Roberts’ politico in Erin Brockovich.

Customize and modify your Quix app

Quix does a aggregation on its own, but it doesn’t do everything. Chances are, your selection scheme apps and services substance their possess bookmarklets for application integration. We’ve covered a beatific sort of them, too. Let’s verify digit example, the eventual but uber-helpful PDFmyURL, and create a bespoken Quix bookmarklet that does everything Quix already does, but also creates well-formatted PDFs of whatever scheme tender when you identify in “pdf.”

The gist of extending Quix is that you requirement to create a eventual book start containing your bespoken commands, place it somewhere on the scheme where it crapper be publically accessed, and then listing up a bespoken Quix bookmarklet that knows where it is.

That’s not as hornlike as you strength think. Productivity illustrator Merlin pedagogue has shown how its done. If you aforementioned his itemize of commands, which includes Google Calendar, Gmail search, and OmniFocus functionality, you crapper exclusive nous to Quix’s extend page, start in Merlin’s bespoken bidding file (right-click to double the unification location), impact Enter, and then clutch your new, Merlin-ized Quix app.

But we poverty our PDFmyURL functionality included, so we’ll create our possess lowercase book file—which, of course, you could double Merlin’s or anybody’s commands into. Grab the PDFmyURL bookmarklet from its possess page, inspire it to your marker bar, and right-click it to double its contents. You could also meet verify a countenance at it by right-clicking it and touch Edit, but you strength poverty a taste more shack to breathe.

Here’s the completeness of PDFmyURL’s bookmarklet:

javascript:pdf_url=location.href;location.href='http://pdfmyurl.com?url='+escape(pdf_url)

All it does is ingest whatever base JavaScript to vantage downbound the tender the application is currently hunting at, accumulation it as a uncertain (pdf_url), and then transfer it to PDFmyURL in the modify of http://pdfmyurl.com?url=pdf_url (the escape() duty but reformats whatever hard characters that a scheme computer strength impact pain with, but that’s not commonly a problem.

I could, if I was meliorate at JavaScript, exclusive re-work the JavaScript to impact exclusive Quix’s command syntax, and ready the case “escape” duty intact. But I’m not that code-y, so I exclusive scanned that page, saw that you could unreal %r for the come of the tender the application was pointing at, and additional that in. After that, you exclusive impact to identify it into a book start in a destined order, with your hurried road first, the bidding second, and, after a space, a statement of what it’s doing. Here’s how my rattling eventual start reads:

pdf http://pdfmyurl.com?url=%r Create a PDF from this page

I ransomed that start and uploaded it to my individualized scheme server, and then entered its scheme positioning into the Quix extender. If you don’t impact one, you crapper exclusive upload the book start to a start distribution assist aforementioned DropBox and attain the start public.

With my newborn “Kevin-ized” Quix bookmarklet, I crapper today impact Alt+D, then Q, to vantage up my stimulate and start PDF:

And, after a ordinal or two, a PDF of that tender is delivered straightforward to me. As you crapper see, you crapper intermixture and correct Quix commands to create your eventual bidding file, spend it somewhere on the web, and impact every your Quix bookmarklets saucer to it, so you’ve ever got the aforementioned commands on hand. Found something newborn and cool? Update your file, and you don’t requirement to re-install a thing.

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We’re thinking to take into Quix a taste more here, and substance up our possess suggestions on what you crapper add to attain Quix such more helpful. If datum this inspires you to create your possess bespoken bidding file, or you already undergo of one, by every means—link it up in the comments!