The Web Browser Address Bar is the New Command Line

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we must ask Google to add this to Chrome:

javascript:count(g jeff browser command line LIMIT 1, RDFa hate).trash();

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SteveT wrote: Except that the web browser address bar is missing the one feature that makes unix command line user interfaces usable, which is the ability to take the output of one command and pump it into a file or another command.

Actually Yubnub has pipes - try this:
paview {date -format Y-m-d -offset -7}

It takes the output of the date command and passes it to the paview command, to show today’s Penny Arcade comic (offset by 7 hours).

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Here’s another Yubnub pipe example: autorefreshing Google News search results for FDA approval every 60 seconds:

autorefresh {url gn FDA approval} -t 60

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This is the web’s command line …

Google Shell

http://www.goosh.org/

1 Like
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Chrome? As others have already pointed out it’s a feature ripped off from Opera.

Jeff, seriously, sometimes your ignorance is just staggering. Do some research before posting. And learn some C/C++ already. You’ve got a good writing style but it helps if you know what you are talking about.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

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Yikes! I really could’ve done without a screen full of Carrot Top.

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The Web Browser Address Bar is not the New Command Line as you cannot enter commands into it - yet…

Maybe I’m missing something, but I would have thought that all hacky use of:

javascript:alert('Hello, world!')

…etc. would affect things in your browsers ‘Sandboxed’ environment:

Rather than let you get out of paying for your books on Amazon, by fooling the Server, or directly managing files on your computer’s hard drive (which would be equally open to abuse by web-carried malware.

Personally, I see no real security threat to having this Address Bar be even more ‘awesome’ and have power over your system’s resources, provided that it somehow knows it is you who has typed in the script and it limits the impact of what you can to do to your filesystem according to your own multi-user Operating System’s access privileges.

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Firefox doesn’t get up to the half of it.

Nowadays everything depends on advertising only. No advertising - no users.

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um…internet explorer does this too. What’s the big deal? I wonder if MS wasn’t hit with the antitrust case, IE would be integrated more into windows.

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The javascript part also features a great hidden password retrieval feature :smiley:

http://relative.nl/browserPasswords.png

Would you like to save this password? [yes][no]

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echo -site:expert-exchange.com >> .googlerc doesn’t provide the expected result…

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Well, what exacly can I use that for? Having the javascript alert saying “Hello world” is kind of cool, Though, umm, it’s just cool.

I can’t really see the point in that. Can I create directories, format drives or remove entire directories with just a few keystrokes? No, I can just search stuff or make javascript, do stuff.

I have no idea who in the right mind uses Google Chrome, as it is spyware. It saves whatever you’re looking at and sends it to google (They say it speeds things up, though that’s a lil bit on the creepy side) Not to mention it lacks key features and isnt any faster than Firefox… So what’s the point really?

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There is also http://fefoo.com which converts the address bar into a command line. http://fefoo.com/help/#commands

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I really could’ve done without a screen full of Carrot Top

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Thanks for this, useful stuff.

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Shaun Inman made a configurable bookmarklet called Shortwave that lets you define your own mappings of little triggers to search services. http://www.shortwaveapp.com/

It’s pretty nice. I ended up making an all-javascript version to avoid the redirect through his servers, but it’s a really cool idea.

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I’m a little surprised at the comments, I generally don’t read the comments.

Usually those who criticize (negatively) don’t have anything good to contribute, constructive criticism however is usually a good thing.

Here is a small quasi list of types of people that have posted thus far:

  1. ‘lets bash Jeff’ ad hominem posters
  2. ‘VB’ sucks posters
  3. My CLI is bigger than your CLI
  4. ‘Anti-Microsoft’ Just for sake of it!

Bottom line:

CLI/GUI, who cares use both depending on the need.

Is the Browser the new CLI? (not really) but then it would be an interesting idea to build such a browser…

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10.5 cm in inches

hrmmmmm

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That’s a brilliant observation.

I’ll never forget the CIO who told me (I was a consultant presenting a Help Desk application that we had been hired to implement and were about to deploy at his company) - It doesn’t look enough like Google. I want it to look like google - just one line that I type what I want into.

Now, to me, google (or google’s address bar) is a huge improvement on the Command Line. I bet the same guy wouldn’t have wanted to return to the days when you had to guess what the command-line needed you to type, much like an Infocom adventure game.

That’s why Google is a huge improvement - it tries to figure out what YOU want. That’s the reverse of a command-line, where you have to figure out what IT wants.