Nederdev : web and Drupal stuff

Last week I released Extesea. In spite of what you might think, Extesea is no pill, powder or fluid, but it does make you feel better!

External search (Extesea) is a small module that allows site administrators to create a search form for every site that offers a search engine that accepts its parameters through the GET method. It generates a small form that will autmatically submit the search query to the search engine's URL. Those URLs are of the form http://example.com/search.php?query=[extesea], where [extesea] will be replaced by the imploded keywords at form submission.

The module is being shipped with dozens of predefined search engines. Blocks with forms for those engines can simply be enabled by checking a checkbox. For people that want to use a search engine that is not predefined, there is a small form where they can enter the engine's name and URL.

Predefined engines are located in special include files in a subfolder. Extra include files with predefined engines may be added, as long as they're in the same folder and have an *.inc extension. Extesea will automatically scan them and add their engines to the list.

Currently the module's still in development stage. The interface will probably change a little, since I intend to allow predefined search engines to provide configuration parameters, like selecting a language for sites like Wikipedia. There's also a request for a feature to allow users to select to which engine to submit their query. In other words: the best is yet to come!