GitHub Launch Page | Hacker News Reader

GitHub Launch Page

github.com

142 pointsbpierre37 comments

With Firefox: instead of a simple bookmark or the browser homepage, I added a bookmark with a "g" keyword ( http://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/keywords.html ).

Then I can use the GitHub launcher without having to touch the mouse:

  ⌘+T, g, ⏎, my-github-command, ⏎.

With Alfred on OS X, I created an extension (http://cl.ly/image/3U3V2h1X2U02) and a hotkey: (http://cl.ly/image/3s3A0B0g2120)

Then I can do:

  ⌥⌘L, my-github-command, ⏎.

Sorry if I'm missing something that's right in front of me, but can you tell me how to setup that for myself?

EDIT: My Alfred interface looks considerably different (http://cl.ly/image/1c3K1w0U182R) yet it seems to be up to date (1.2)

EDIT #2: OH, it's the paid Powerpack isn't it?

Beat me to it, nice :)

But why do you use that keyboard combination over the default option+space?

EDIT: Ugh, nevermind - brain fart, my apologies for the slight odor...

Why do it so convoluted?

Just create an URL hotkey: http://i.minus.com/ivEwdZPVJYHA7.png

Not quite the same functionality but on that page you can click the drop-down on the search bar and "Add GitHub". Then the github command line is one of the options for search providers alongside Google, Wikipedia etc. If you select it as the default, you can Ctrl-K up to the search bar and type a command without leaving the keyboard.

Also (and I'm not sure how useful this is) you can select some text, right-click it and execute it as a GitHub command.

Can you tell me how you made it work?

Adding a keyword for that field uses the following URL: https://github.com/search?q=&type=Everything&repo=&#... which ends up as a regular search. So typing "g @mojombo" doesn't bring me to his profile but rather triggers a regular search.

He doesn't do that, he presses enter after g to get to the launch page, and searches from there.

Same concept in Opera:

1. Right-click bar.

2. Add search shortcut

3. In your address bar, type:

    <shortcut> <query>

You could also just add the site as a Fluid app, I guess.

Thats fantastic.

However github would be better served if the github.com put the tab focus right inside the command bar. That way their would be no need for /launch at all...

I've been using FF for years and never knew it could do this. This is awesome, thanks!

I wish they simply fixed their regular code search. It has never worked and is one of the features I miss. Russ Cox's Google Code Search was an excellent example of how this should look like, to bad it's gone as well.

I hate how it shows all freaking forks. Say I wanted to look for a theme for a particular piece of software. I'd have to wade trough the countless forks of the software in question, occasionally actually seeing a theme listed. It's terribru.

it would be incredible if the command bar could be integrated into my chrome omnibar... with the prefix github.com:

that way i could naturally use the power of the commandbar in my browser without having to go to github first

It's built-in! Right-click the search box and "Add as search engine". Then pick a keyword like... github. Then you can put in the omnibar:

  github samirahmed

and it just works!

I use this, however unfortunately under Chrome, it does not provide all the same functionality as using the command bar directly.

For example, type 'github my notifications' in Omnibox.

It takes one to the advanced search page, instead of the notifications page.

I wonder why it's different, doesn't it go to the same URL?

It's not quite the command bar, but GitHub's search box uses OpenSearch and Chrome picks it up. You should be able to type `github.com`, hit tab, and then search GitHub.

> it would be incredible if the command bar could be integrated into my chrome omnibar...

That's pretty unlikely, though Firefox probably provides deep-enough hooks to do so.

Alfred can do that if you're on a Mac. http://alfredapp.com/

How?

My fingers tremble at the thought of mixing this with Firefox's completion and the Pentadactyl command line.

You could use yubnub or bunny1 to do this.

All this and I can't specify that I want to search only Ruby language repos via keyboard shortcut of any kind.

`language:ruby example` ?

Whoop! :)

You could probably set up an alias for that in the Chrome / Firefox location bar too.

Here's the chrome search engine string in case anyone else needs it:

https://github.com/search?langOverride=&q=language%3Arub...

I really like the new command bar. And my initial thought was how awesome a browser integration would be. So, I just started coding a small Chrome extension and here it is:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cagcemjohhdepmbdng...

It's far from complete and only supports a subset of GitHub's command bar and not the same ranking logic. But it already does a decent job for repositories and users. As soon as I have more time I will add more features.

Btw I'm sure it could be done for Firefox and Safari too.

Looks like they're really going "all-in" on the CLI for web app concept. I'd expect to start seeing this type of interface really taking off for a lot of developer facing services. What's old is new again...

Could GitHub just make gitgub.com/foo work in exactly the sane way as putting "foo" in the command bar? It wouldnt have the same autocomplete, but it would be much faster.

Does anyone know how to initiate a web compare between to branches using this thing? If I could have that + Alfred (or whatever launch bar / cli one uses) that would be amazing.

I like the idea, but so far at least on my (slow) connection, there is a big lag when I type, making it less useful.

Good idea otherwise!

very cool github feature indeed.

Probably not a lot of people use Safari here, but anyway. If you don't use Alfred and use Safari there is another easy way for Mac OS users.

Just add the launch site to your bookmarks bar (on a place between 1 and 9). Assuming it is in the first place: ⌘+T, ⌘+1, my-github-command, ⏎

Very cool, now this just needs to be integrated with alfred and osx users will rejoice!

I was looking into this briefly, it seems it would all be pretty straightforward apart from the fact that you need to be authenticated to access the JSON endpoints, I'm not sure how that would work as an Alfred extension.

best feature github has added in the last year.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com