How to Add an UrbanDictionary Quick Search in Firefox
One of the most useful features of Firefox is it's "Quick Searches." You might not know about them, so say you wanted to search Google, instead of typing in www.google.com in the adress bar then typing in your search string, eg pie, you can simply type "google pie" in the address bar and Firefox will skip straight to the results. Sure there's that custom search box at the top right, but I can never be bothered moving my mouse all the way over there and clicking the icon to change it.
There are more quick searches already defined in Firefox, for example dict searches dictionary.com (you can see them all by looking in Bookmarks->Quick Searches). This guide will tell you how to add one for an alternative dictionary site, UrbanDictionary.com.
Step 1
First, go to www.UrbanDictionary.com in Firefox. There's a search box at the top right, so type monkey in that and hit Search. The page changes to the search results for monkey, it's defined as "One of the three primary ingredients of a good game," but that's not important. What you're now interested in is the address bar, which now shows the url http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=monkey&r=f.
Step 2
What you now want to do is, in the menu bar at the top of the screen, choose Bookmarks->Bookmark This Page. Shorten the name to UrbanDictionary and select to save it in the Quick Searches directory (if this is not showing you may have to press the down arrow next to the "Create In" list of folders).
Step 3
In the menu bar, go toBookmarks->Quick Searches->UrbanDictionary, right click on it then choose "Properties." The properties of the bookmark open in a small window, look at the URL in the Location field: it should say http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=monkey&r=f. To create the Quick Search, we need to change this to a general search, so edit the URL to say http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%s&r=f. What we've done is changed monkey for %s. In the "Keyword" field, enter the term you want to use to activate the search, for example I'm using udict, then enter a description if you wish. The bookmark's properties should now look something like this:
Hit the Ok button.
Step 4
That's it, now you can test it by typing udict pie in the address bar. The UrbanDictionary definition for pie should then load. If that doesn't happen then try checking you've gone through everything correctly.
Update
Since this article was written, the UrbanDictionary quick search has been included with Firefox, with the usage slang [word]. Also, an earlier version of this article was linked from the UrbanDictionary "in the press" page, which was kinda neat. :) This article is being left on the site as it still provides the theory behind adding a Quick Search and so may still prove useful to someone.
