Focus Template Request

[Josh]

Next week we’re going to be announcing a development for Focus, expanding out the template library in order to include useful submissions from Mojeek users.

If anyone here is a user of Focus and has any templates that they find particularly useful, you could help this launch out a lot by being one of the first new submissions. Just let me know and I’ll give you some more details.

Even if you’re not a user of Focus but you have a good idea or collection of links then I’m sure we can make that work too.

You can also help us out if none of this applies by keeping this under wraps until next week

[mike]

I regularly use the World Factbook as an atlas. My Focus ‘Site to Search’ is www.cia.gov which does a good job. However, you might limit that further to https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/%s/

[gnome]

I don’t use Focus, but here are some thoughts:

• Anime/Manga/VN DB sites like Myanimelist, Anilist, AniDB, VNDB, Mangaupdates, Novelupdates
• Bookstores like Booktopia, Audiobooksnow, Libro.fm, Barnes & Noble, TOR Books, Leanpub, Smashwords … Amazon, I guess. It can be really annoying finding books sometimes. Only problem with this is it won’t surface authors selling their books on thier own site.
• Programming/Server admin sites. You know, when you’re looking for a fix to your technical issue on Stackoverflow or ServerFault.

[Josh]

@mike

I regularly use the World Factbook as an atlas. My Focus ‘Site to Search’ is www.cia.gov which does a good job. However, you might limit that further to https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/%s/

it is an interesting use case but I think for these initial ones we’re trying to find multi-site searches so it shows off what the tool can do. Thanks though

@gnome

but here are some thoughts:

all three of these look to fit the bill, and pretty much all the sites you’ve named all seem to have decent coverage; any chance you’d be willing to be one of the first Github submissions? The process isn’t too hard and is outlined in the repo

[bbbhltz]

No suggestions for a template, but are there plans to allow for more than 25 URLs/sites in the filters?

[Josh]

@bbbhltz

are there plans to allow for more than 25 URLs/sites in the filters?

At the moment the release will be keeping the 25 limit, but it’s been requested a few times so it’s on the list.

If inspiration does hit anyone then the repo is ready and we’ll push it out wider next week. Would be good to have some things up ahead of that but it’s about utility so these things can take time.

[gnome]

@Josh

all three of these look to fit the bill, and pretty much all the sites you’ve named all seem to have decent coverage; any chance you’d be willing to be one of the first Github submissions? The process isn’t too hard and is outlined in the repo

I’ll keep it in mind if I have some free time!

[Stuart]

Hi, not a new Focus request, but I’d like it if the existing ones used partial URLs rather than just domains to be more specific. When I tried the dictionary focus for the word “test”, I got random web pages from the chosen domains that contained the word test (like an article on dictionary.com with words for spelling tests) rather than definitions of the word test. So, more specific URL patterns would make the results more useful and targeted?

[Josh]

@Stuart

I’d like it if the existing ones used partial URLs rather than just domains to be more specific

Noted, this is not the end of iterations on Focus so it’ll be looked at.

[mike]

@Stuart

I’d like it if the existing ones used partial URLs rather than just domains to be more specific

Hi @Stuart. This is technically known as a path. For reference, I first asked about this in 2022.

If you need that kind of functionality for one-off searches, DuckDuckGo recognizes the full URL:

# Query
lexicon site:dictionary.com/browse

# URL
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lexicon+site%3Adictionary.com%2Fbrowse

# Decoded URL
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lexicon+site:dictionary.com/browse

[snatchlightning]

I have a request for Focus: can you make them easier to use for people who regularly clear their search history? Either by:

1. Switching Focus on by default, as the process of switching it on is horribly inefficient, requiring around 5 clicks across 2-3 different pages.
2. Having a cookieless option, so I could save the setup with Focus switched on as my home page.
3. Having search operators for triggering them.

I’m not a regular user of Focus yet, but the Dictionary template is of particular interest for me as I often come across unfamiliar words.

[Videonas]

Yes please!

And perhaps an easy way to append websites to a focus when you’re using regular search so that you can build out the focus overtime.

[Josh]

Will also reply to @snatchlightning’s request, but just for this quickly @Videonas there is a way currently. If you have the top-right option turned on from the Dashboard.

You can add these on the fly with the icons next to results:

[Josh]

@snatchlightning

• Switching Focus on by default, as the process of switching it on is horribly inefficient, requiring around 5 clicks across 2-3 different pages.

One issue with it is, if it’s on by default, we have the SERP widgets and the text in the bar pop up as standard. I agree that getting to it quicker is something to look at; the Focus tab itself is very minimal when it comes to screen space, so turning that on by default (pulling it out as a separate setting) should help.

@snatchlightning

• Having a cookieless option, so I could save the setup with Focus switched on as my home page.

This is a tricky one which we have thought about; the main problem is that Focus in its current form uses cookies, this was chosen for the first iteration of the tool and it’s still a way that users can still keep themselves private on Mojeek.

Unfortunately this means that a Focus adds a lot to the URL which would be built in order to allow for a cookieless mode. A possible solution is having an account, but then the privacy side of things is not as possible, and on top of that it means creating an account architecture etc.

@snatchlightning

• Having search operators for triggering them.

We’ve got a sitting issue for this piece of functionality; so I’ve added in this request to that

[Videonas]

@Josh

A possible solution is having an account, but then the privacy side of things is not as possible, and on top of that it means creating an account architecture etc.

Have you ever looked at Ecosia? They have a counter feature to count the amount of trees you would have planted with your searches. This counter can be synced acros devices. This works by sending a link to your email address which, one clicked, sets a cookie. Ecosia themselves don’t store your email anywhere.

Could this be an inspiration on how to do this?

I’m not claiming that I know anything about how this works, but I’m assuming that they use your email address as a variable to generate a unique URL. This URL is then send to that email address. If you don’t like asking or entering an email, then perhaps there are still other options using the same method, I reckon. Having the user enter a word/sentence/… that is used instead of the email and displaying the uniquely generated URL on screen. Obviously keeping in mind that without an email there a chance that 2 people use the same variable and therefore generate the same URL, but I think I’m going to leave figering out the details to people that are more expert in this than I am.

[Josh]

@Videonas

Could this be an inspiration on how to do this?

I’ve noted this down on the Issue for making Focus work this way.

There are a number of different viable ways for doing this; this one will be considered when we come to look at that Issue again.