I use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + F regularly to search for phrases in websites with lots of content to be able to find what I’m looking for faster. Some webmasters still seem to think that putting as much content on one page is the way to go if you want to present your information.
Find as you type is a concept in Firefox that begins the search for the phrase when you start typing. This means that you do not have to press CTRL + F to open the search box. The function is automatically deactivated when you type in a form on the website.
To enable this function you need to access the Firefox configuration. Type about:config in the address bar and filter for the string accessibility.typeaheadfind. The default value is false for this entry. Set it to true to enable immediate searches on websites.
There are several more options that can be configured. Take a look at the Firefox Mastery blog for their explanation.
Related posts:
- Add Find as you type to Internet Explorer
- Firefox Search Tweaks
- Quick Jump To Text Fields In Firefox
- Warning Unresponsive Script in Firefox
- Type less to access websites faster
- Increase Responsiveness of Firefox
- Tweak Firefox with about:config
- Display Google Search Results while you type in Firefox
Actually, you don’t need to access the Firefox configuration to change this setting, it is much simpler than that. Just open “Tools > Options…” and tick the option “Search for text as I start typing”.
This was the feature that made me switch from IE to Firefox many years ago.
I like ‘find as you type’ too. You can also bring up quickfind by typing / if you have the setting disabled.
that’s pretty cool. One thing I noticed though when using find on view source w/ firefox is that much of the text doesn’t come up with a match. for example, the names of the people who commented here. I can find other items on a page, but for some reason not everything.