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--- choose_php [2017-04-09 15:08]
andreas http -> https where appropriate
+++ choose_php [2019-03-15 18:17]
andreas [Features] fixed link/name for Startpage
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+====== choose.php - ChooSE your search engine ======
+**choose.php** is a PHP script intended to
+let users choose their favorite search engine. Instead of providing
+a link to a particular web search one can point to an installation of
+''choose.php'' which allows users to choose a preferred search engine
+before doing the actual search.
+The script is meant to be used for instance in blog posts and comments
+((Example usage in a comment: "Have you tried to look it up? Most search engines provide good
+results, see [[https://wox.at/s/choose.php?q=what+does+RTFM+mean]]")) or in
+electronic mail communication (for this purpose the script produces
+a link to itself to be copied into the message).
+The basic idea is that people should have a free and easy to use choice
+of search engines.
+===== ChooSE @wox.at =====
+  * [[https://wox.at/s/]]
+===== Features =====
+  * Freedom of choice ;-)
+  * Extended listing of search engines: Shown with ''?ext'' added to URL ([[https://wox.at/s/choose+your+search+engine?ext|example showing extended list]])
+  * Preselect a search engine: A default search engine is set up by the script itself. It can be overruled by adding ''?e='' + the key for the search engine ([[https://wox.at/s/choose+your+search+engine?e=startpage|example for Startpage]]).((One user wanted to use my installation of ''choose.php'' as home page for the browser but wanted to be able to pre-select her own favorite search engine. Links for this setup as home page are provided as anchors behind the access keys as shown in the extended listing.))
+  * Search engines can be easily added or changed by editing the script.
+  * Access keys for search engines: E.g. Alt-Shift-g for Google, Alt-Shift-b for Bing, ...
+  * Access keys for search string field (Alt-Shift-f) and Submit (Alt-Shift-s)
+===== Instructions for use =====
+Feel free to use my own installation of ''choose.php'' at [[https://wox.at/s/]]. However, I recommend that people set up their own search engine switcher (for added freedom of choice and privacy).
+Basically, **choose.php** comes as a single PHP file. Download it (see links below), rename appropriately, set permissions if needed, and edit the file to change a few settings. That's it.
+Important settings to make it work are values of ''$me'', ''$mesuffix'', and ''$c_action''. Let's assume you have a blog at ''%%http://blog.rats.at%%''. You copied ''choose.php'' to the main directory, so it should be available at ''%%http://blog.rats.at/choose.php%%''. Then set
+<code php>
+$me='http://blog.rats.at/choose.php';
+$mesuffix='?q=';
+$c_action="$me";
+</code>
+==== URL rewriting ====
+For ''https://wox.at/s'', I use URL rewriting (on an Apache server) to remove the filename from the URL. I copied ''choose.php'' as ''index.php'' into the folder ''/s''. My ''.htaccess'' contains
+<code htaccess>
+RewriteEngine   on
+RewriteBase /s
+RewriteRule ^$                        index.php  [L]
+RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-f
+RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-d
+RewriteRule (.*)                      index.php?q=$1  [QSA,L]
+</code>
+With these rewriting rules I can set in ''index.php'' (i.e. ''choose.php'')
+<code php>
+$me='https://wox.at/s';
+$mesuffix='';
+$c_action="$me/";
+</code>
+=== Dealing with slashes ===
+If you use the rewriting rules as shown above you'll probably observe that when searching for a string with 2 or more slashes (''%%//%%'') the Apache server will reduce the slashes to single slashes((Cf. [[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/889435/can-mod-rewrite-preserve-a-double-slash |Can mod_rewrite preserve a double slash?]] and [[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/831355/diggbar-modrewrite-how-do-they-pass-urls-through-modrewrite/869017#869017 |How do they pass URLs through modrewrite?]])).
+A solution is to use ''RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST}'' and ''%1'' as in
+<code htaccess>
+RewriteEngine   on
+RewriteBase /s
+RewriteRule ^$                        index.php  [L]
+RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-f
+RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-d
+RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST}            ^GET\ /s/([^\s]+)
+RewriteRule .                         index.php?q=%1  [QSA,L]
+</code>
+Speaking of slashes, in rare cases they are encoded as ''%2F'' instead of ''%252F''. Apache by default does not accept ''%2F'' and returns a 404. One could probably write a RewriteRule for this, but another approach is to turn [[https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/en/mod/core.html#allowencodedslashes|AllowEncodedSlashes]] on. However, this needs to be done in the server configuration:
+  # Needed for ChooSE but should not hurt otherwise either
+  AllowEncodedSlashes On
+=== Processing ? and & parameters ===
+Eventually, we also want to pass ''?ext'' and possibly other parameters to the script. For this we need another rule which needs to be inserted right after ''RewriteRule ^$     index.php  [L]'':
+<code htaccess>
+RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-f
+RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}       !-d
+RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST}            ^GET\ /s/(.*)\?(.*)\ HTTP/
+RewriteRule .                         index.php?q=%1&%2  [QSA,L]
+</code>
+===== Download & source =====
+  * Download current version((Version history is included in main file.)): [[https://wox.at/s/choose.txt|choose.php.txt]] (~ 14 KB; rename to e.g. ''choose.php'')
+    * Example CSS [[https://wox.at/s/choose.css|choose.css]] (~ 1 KB; should give reasonable results out of the box)
+    * Example XML for search engine addon: [[https://wox.at/s/choose-ffse.xml|choose-ffse.xml]] (~ 1 KB; needs to be adapted, of course)
+  * View [[https://wox.at/s/choose.phps|source]] (with syntax highlighting)

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