OpenSearch

OpenSearch

Example of a web page which offers to add a new search plugin using the "auto-discovery" technique. When viewing with the Firefox browser version 3, the symbol of the currently selected search engine (Google's G in the example) becomes bluish. The user can choose to add the search engine offered by that page by clicking the small triangle
Developed by	Amazon.com
Initial release	March 15, 2005 (2005-03-15)
Latest release	1.1 / December 6, 2005; 5 years ago (2005-12-06)
Type of format	Web syndication
Extended from	RSS
Open format?	Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License
Website	OpenSearch.org

OpenSearch is a collection of technologies that allow publishing of search results in a format suitable for syndication and aggregation. It is a way for websites and search engines to publish search results in a standard and accessible format.

OpenSearch was developed by Amazon.com subsidiary A9 and the first version, OpenSearch 1.0, was unveiled by Jeff Bezos at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in March, 2005. Draft versions of OpenSearch 1.1 were released during September and December 2005. The OpenSearch specification is licensed by A9 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.^[1]

Design

Search suggestions in the German Wikipedia

OpenSearch consists of:

1. OpenSearch Description files: XML files that identify and describe a search engine.
2. OpenSearch Query Syntax: describe where to retrieve the search results
3. OpenSearch RSS (in OpenSearch 1.0) or OpenSearch Response (in OpenSearch 1.1): format for providing open search results.
4. OpenSearch Aggregators: Sites that can display OpenSearch results.
5. OpenSearch "Auto-discovery" to signal the presence of a search plugin link to the user and the link embedded in the header of HTML pages

OpenSearch Description Documents list search result responses for the given website/tool. Version 1.0 of the specification only allowed one response, in RSS format; however, version 1.1 provides support for multiple responses, which may be in any format. RSS and Atom are the only ones formally supported by OpenSearch aggregators, however other types, such as HTML are perfectly acceptable.

• Reference to the OpenSearch Description Document must be made in the root file of the domain.^{[citation needed]}

e.g. for xyz.com the <link> reference to the OpenSearch Description should be placed in xyz.com/index.html

Thus one domain can have only one Open Search reference.

• OpenSearch Description Document must be placed on a web server of the same domain.^[2]

Search engines and software that support OpenSearch

• Alfresco^[3]
• Arora^[4]
• Bing API^[5]
• GNOME Do application launchers^[6]
• GNOME Shell in overview mode^[7]
• Google Chrome^[8]
• Internet Explorer 7 and above integrate web search services with their search bars.^[4]
• Mozilla Firefox 2 and above implement OpenSearch, as well as a subset named MozSearch. MozSearch is not intended for web use, only for Firefox related projects. Extended features from MozSearch are usable in an OpenSearch file with an XML namespace prefix. Features specific to MozSearch include search suggestions, among others. ^[9][4]
• Rekonq 0.7 and above.^[10]
• SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search 7.2 and above supports the OpenSearch standards for search client and search provider plus some SAP-specific extensions ^[11]
• SeaMonkey internet suite 2.1 Beta and above supports OpenSearch plugins as the default for web search.^[12]
• Search2.net support OpenSearch
• Wikipedia suggests articles matching a typed-in entry with incremental find.^{[citation needed]}
• Windows 7 and Microsoft Search Server to let users federate searches to web services via a centralized location. (Note that even if the Site does not support OpenSearch, through a service on the "Find More Providers" page, one can add a website with a search engine if "TEST" is searched and the URL of the search page contains "TEST".)
• Microsoft SharePoint 2007^[13] and SharePoint 2010^[14]
• YaCy^{[citation needed]}
• Esri ArcGIS Geoportal
• Synapse - Semantic program launcher

See also

• Representational State Transfer (REST)
• Search/Retrieve via URL (SRU)
• Sherlock
• Z39.50

References

1. ^ Ogbuji, Uche (July 24, 2007). "Introducing OpenSearch". xml.com. http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2007/07/20/introducing-opensearch.html. 
2. ^ "Developer how to guide". http://www.opensearch.org. http://www.opensearch.org/Documentation/Developer_how_to_guide. 
3. ^ "OpenSearch - Alfresco Wiki". 2 January 2009. http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/OpenSearch. Retrieved 2011-06-19. 
4. ^ ^{a b c} "OpenSearch search clients - Web browsers". opensearch.org. http://www.opensearch.org/Community/OpenSearch_enabled_search_clients. Retrieved 2009-12-24. 
5. ^ http://www.bing.com/developers/s/API%20Basics.pdf
6. ^ "OpenSearch Plugin - Gnome Do Wiki". David Siegel. 5 February 2009. http://do.davebsd.com/wiki/OpenSearch_Plugin. Retrieved 2010-03-30. 
7. ^ "OpenSearch Support Patch - GNOME Bugzilla". GNOME. 17 January 2011. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=623708. Retrieved 2011-22-02. 
8. ^ "Google Chrome FAQ for web developers". Google. 9 April 2010. http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/webmasters-faq.html#osdd. Retrieved 2010-05-03. 
9. ^ Ponomarev, Nickolay (9 Sep 2007). "Supporting search suggestions in search plugins". Mozilla Developer Center. Mozilla. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Supporting_search_suggestions_in_search_plugins. Retrieved 2007-08-03. 
10. ^ "rekonq 0.7 alpha". 10 February 2011. http://adjamblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/rekonq-0-7-alpha. Retrieved 2011-03-17. 
11. ^ "SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search OpenSearch - Developer Documentation". 11 February 2010. http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/90ddc85f-f000-2d10-e4b8-b0b256ec90fd. Retrieved 2011-08-17. 
12. ^ http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.1b1/#new
13. ^ "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Federated Search Overview". http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc806030%28v=office.12%29.aspx. 
14. ^ "Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Federated Search Overview". http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc806030.aspx. 

External links

• OpenSearch.org – official website, including specifications