One of the earliest feature request of pkgdb2 (that was present in pkgdb1) is the browser search integration.

This integration is based on the OpenSearch specifications and basically allows to use pkgdb as one of the search engine of your web browser just like you can use google, duckduckgo or wikipedia.

I recently found out this feature is not so well known, so I thought I would present it and explain how to set it up (screenshot are on Firefox).

1/ Go to https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb and click on the list of search engines at the top right.

2/ Select the entry Add "Fedora PkgDB2: Packages"

That's it you are done for the most important step :)

pkgdb_search_3.1.png

Now something which I do and find most useful is:

3/ Go to Manage Search Engines...

There, with the search engine pkgdb packages associate the keyword pkgdb

pkgdb_search_5.png

Now, you can use your url bar as usual but when you enter pkgdb <something> it will search this <something> in pkgdb directly. So for example, if you want to search for guake in pkgdb, you would type in your url bar pkgdb guake.

pkgdb_search_6.png

The bonus point is that since there is only one package with this name, you will be immediately redirected to its page.

This way, when you want to quickly find information about a package in pkgdb, you can get it from your browser in one simple step (eventually two if several package match the keyword you entered).

Final bonus point? To access pkgdb directly, enter in the url bar: "pkgdb " (with a space at the end), without a keyword, Firefox will bring you directly to the front page of the application.