vinaur

If you're using Google Toolbar and don't want to install Google Deskbar, but still want to add custom search buttons, this is for you:

DISCLAIMER: The following tutorial involves editing your registry, which could cause your computer to crash. I am not responsible for any mistakes made by incorrectly following the tutorial.

1) OK, so open up your regedit (Start\Run, type regedit, press Enter), and go to HKEY_USERS\[the longest key in there without _Classes at the end]\Software\Google

2) Now you need to create a new key, so right-click the window on the right and select New\Key.

3) Name it CustomSearch.

4) Now go to that key and create a new String Value named 0.

5) In that string value place the following:
You have to replace:

[title] with the title that you want the button to have

[url] with the search url of the search engine. For instance, to get an eBay search url, you would go to ebay.com and search for a random thing. Now look at the url of the search result page, it has something like http://search.ebay.com/the_random_thing_you_searched_for_with_a_buch_of_giderish_afterwards. Now you take the part of the url that precedes the_random_thing_you_searched_for (this would be http://search.ebay.com/) and copy it. Now paste this in place of [url].

cmdkey='[cmd key combo]' is optional, so you can delete it. If you do want to make a shortcut key combo for the search then replace [cmd key combo] with whatever combo you want, like Ctrl+H, or something of the sort.

Now you should be set. Restart the IE browser and enjoy. The button will appear in the drop-down menu by the search box. If you want to make it appear by the Image Search and Search Site buttons, you can do so in the options; however the button will not have text by it and will have a standard picture, so it is hard to distinguish between several such custom search buttons (at least this is how it looks on Google Toolbar v3.0). I will try to find, if it's possible at all, how to add a custom image or add the name of the button by it.

To add more buttons create similar String Values in the same key, just name them 1, 2, 3, and so on.

Anyway, I thought someone might find this useful, so enjoy.

BTW, if you find something, please post.

jhkayakr

Man, looks good but beware when editing the registry you can really mess the computer up.

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userasdf1234

I'm reluctant to mess with the registry myself too. Sounds pretty cool though. I'm just wondering, is this something you figured out yourself? If you did thats some good work!

wolf

Nice work dude....

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vinaur

Yup, figured it out on my own. I sent an email to google support asking them what I need to add to the registry to add buttons and they told me that they can't tell me that. So I installed the Deskbar and used it to create a custom button. Then searched the registry for the button name. Voila! There it was. So I uninstalled Deskbar and added the registry value myself. It worked. Maybe I should send an e-mail to Google support telling them how to add custom buttons.


BTW, if you are affraid of editing your registry, don't be (at least for this project). The key that you will be editing does not have to do anything with Windows. And since you will be <b>adding</b> and <b>not deleting</b> keys you should definitelly not be worried.