Soovle

We’ve just added Opensearch integration to our site.

In English – users can now add our search engine to their browser’s search box. Check it out!

Go to the home page: http://soovle.com and look at the search box in your browser. See that slight highlight on the drop down arrow? That means the browser has detected the new feature.

Click the little arrow and, at the bottom of the list, you’ll be provided an option to “Add Soovle”.

Try it out. Let us know if you run into any issues.

We’re finally converted to JQuery.

It was a pain!

There are a couple of difficult bits in jQuery that were easier with the former libraries. Those difficulties were worth it though.  We get much better support and reliability from the jQuery framework.

One of the most surprising bits was the complete failure of the jStore plugin.  It has typos and other problems in its core engine.  So we had to write our own storage system – which turned out to be great because its a nice implementation of a write-through cache which prevents the need for asynchronous data loading.

Additionally we found horrible inefficiencies in the “scale” UI effect.  Leading us to use the simple “slide” effect in places where scale was preferrable.  This likely to be fixed in future releases.

So – there are likely to be bugs.  Please let us know if you find any but we are finally free to begin innovating again.

Here’s to more fun and features to come!

Soovle.com was originally written in Prototype and Scriptaculous.

After a bit of assessment and the discovery of much better library support for jQuery – I decided to convert.

That is what I’m working on now. If you’d like to take a look at the development version of the software go to:
http://soovle.com/indexd.html

*warning*: Be warned – if you use the development version of the software their maybe undesirable effects on your “saves” list. So, before going, be sure to use the download feature in the book to save it off.

The BEST part of the switch will be much better support for Chrome and more reliable drag-n-drop.

Let me know what you think!

matt@soovle.com

I, with another friend, built a prominent site’s search completion feature.

At launch I discovered  suggested terms are very different depending on the audience.

Take this comparison of the word “Tiger” from two very different sets:

Amazon’s is far better than Google for Products where Google is working better for general web concepts.

The combination is better for the user…  enter Soovle.

I created the first version of Soovle in two train trips on the way home from work, last October(2008), and it took off in popularity.  Ever since, late at night, I’ve been adding to it.

It has now reached more than 100K people – which, sure, in web world, may not be many – but its a heck-of-alot more than I thought would visit and the traffic is continuing to grow.

Thanks to all who have visited and thanks to all who provided the great feedback that has been formative in Soolve’s creation.

I tried to do all of my blog entries about Soovle via Twitter but it is very difficult to publish how-to articles in one hundred and forty characters or less.

If you’d like to follow or see old entries goto: http://twitter.com/soovle

What you’ll find on this blog is announcements, nifty tricks and hidden features that will help you get the most out of Soovle.

My favorite twitter quote about Soovle:

rainnwilson: Holy Frak! The Zeus of all SEARCH ENGINES!