If you use Firefox, you’re in for a treat. If not, please download it and resume reading about Ubiquity and how you can use it to query the Oracle database documentation library and do other neat stuff using simple commands.
Jake was struggling to define it, but basically, Ubiquity is a Firefox extension, a powerful one. Here is a short video that gives you an introduction to what it can do.
Cool, isn’t it? Go ahead, install Ubiquity 0.1.1 and give it a whirl.
OK, now that you have Ubiquity enabled in your Firefox browser, visit the following page:
http://awads.net/firefox/ubiquity/commands/ubiquity.html
When you are on that page, you will get a message offering you the choice of subscribing to my Ubiquity commands which are also listed on the page.
Currently, I have only one command: oradoc. It is similar to Don’s command but it has the added feature of displaying the search results in Ubiquity’s preview area.
Currently the preview is for Oracle database 11g and 10g documentation libraries. This was possible because John provided an RSS feed for DB 11g search results. I used Dapper to create the DB 10g search results feed.
I use and parse the feeds in the command code to generate the preview using jQuery’s AJAX and XML Goodness.
By the way, you can use Ubiquity’s “search” command to search with your Oracle Search Plugins, or other search plugins, installed in your browser’s search bar.
Here is a short screencast that demonstrates how to use the oradoc Ubiquity command and shows you other neat Ubiquity features: Click here to see the screencast.
Related articles:
- New RSS Feed for Oracle Database 10g Documentation Search
- Where Is That Oracle Virtual Book?
- How OraNA.info Aggregates Blogs.Oracle.com
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Brilliant! I had forgotten about the RSS feeds for 11g. Do you know if John has any plans to port that to the 10g searches?
Kudos, sir.
September 1st, 2008, at 9:05 pm #Thanks Don. We are having fun with Ubiquity, aren’t we? I know John has been interested in providing RSS feeds for Oracle documentation, but I’m not sure about any specific plans.
September 1st, 2008, at 10:49 pm #A lot of the potential RSS goodness is tied up with the Web 2.0-style stuff in the 11g library. E.g. there are URLs for RSS feeds for new books, but have to find the right place(s) in the UI to link to them; for example, perhaps in the left navigation bar for each book. But the RSS feed for search results doesn’t have such dependencies, so it shouldn’t be a problem to backport.
Let’s aim for that as an OpenWorld welcoming gift.
I’ll be at OpenWorld but hanging out at a more diverse set of booths this year.
September 3rd, 2008, at 4:16 pm #John, More RSS goodness is great! Looking forward to meeting with you at OOW.
September 3rd, 2008, at 6:14 pm #[...] Of course there was some browser news this week, too. No, not that news. This is provided by the Ubiquity Firefox extension and by Eddie Awad. The item is Eddie’s look at new ubiquitous ways to search Oracle documentation and more. [...]
September 5th, 2008, at 9:53 am #[...] Oracle and SAP being early adopters of the Ubiquity command line interface (CLI) as an opportunity to [...]
November 13th, 2008, at 3:34 am #