On The Chrome Effect...

With all the buzz around Google Chrome, I couldn't help but try it out myself. For a beta, this thing already seems fairly complete. To test that theory, I tried to see how hard it is to add a custom search provider to Chrome. The answer? Not hard at all.

First, select the 'Options' item from the customize/control toolbar menu (the one with the wrench on it).

You'll see a dialog like the one below.

Next, click on the 'Manage' button. You'll see another dialog, like the one below.

Now click on the 'Add' button, and enter the specifics for your custom search engine in the dialog that appears. In my case I added "ER/Studio Enterprise Portal" for the name, "ersportal" for the keyword, and "http://webportal.embarcadero.com/ersportal/SimpleSearch?PV=%s" for the URL. The '%s' is a placeholder for the search terms.

That's it! Now, you can make your new search provider the default if you want, but that's not necessary. Chrome has a super-smart URL field that supports both searching and browsing. All you need to do is type the keyword for your search provider ("esrportal" in my case) and you'll be prompted to press the 'Tab' key to search using it ("ER/Studio Enterprise Portal" here).

Press the 'Tab' key, type in your search term (I typed "customer"), and presto!

I'm sure there will be a never-ending debate about whether the world really needed a new browser... but I don't care. So far, I've been impressed by what I've seen.