Drag and drop text to search?
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edwardmknight last edited by
I love Opera since converting from Chrome. It's fast and lightweight and a whole lot smoother so far.
The only feature I can't figure out how to use is drag+drop. I take it it's not supported via the browser itself, but is there an extension out there that'll work for me?
What I want to do is to be able to drag a TEXT selection into the tab bar to create a search, in a new tab, for that selection. I can drag URL links to the tab bar and have them open as new tabs, but not with text.
Help?
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dvk-ru1 last edited by
As for search, I don't know about drag-and-drop, but you can right-click the text selected and use the context menu to send it to a search engine of your choice or the default one. It's 2-3 clicks, but no significant mouse move, and it works with large selections. It's how I send text to Google Translate, for example.
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lem729 last edited by
edwardmknight, that's great. Welcome to Opera! And the forum!
dvk-ru!'s is great. Thanks dvk-ru1. I didn't know about that.
I did find an extension in the Chrome store where you can highlight text to search. Since, it's in the Chrome store (I didn't see it in the Opera store, you need the Opera extension, "Download Chrome Extension," and then you can use extensions in the Chrome to store. The Chrome extension I want to draw your attention to is called, "Highlight to Search"
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/highlight-to-search/floipahigmmkfhkoapmnijnlnboniglg
Here's a bit of a summaary, "Highlight to Search allows you search keywords by highlighting instead of typing them into a search box.Google Highlight to Search is a browser extension that helps you search keywords easily.
After you highlight keywords within a web page, you'll see magnifying-glass icon appear below the highlighted keywords.
By either clicking on the icon or the keywords itself, search-box with Autocomplete enabled appears for you to search quickly and easily."I like dvk-ru1's better!
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edwardmknight last edited by
I do use the context menu option right now (it's simpler than highlight to search, though I appreciate lem's suggestion). Problem is, using it makes Opera focus on the new tab. If it would open in the background, then it would be perfect.
Usage scenario: I'm browsing a news site comparing three different products:
'Product A'
'Product B'
'Product C'I'm intrigued, and want to do a search on each of them. If I highlight 'Product A' and do a context-menu search, the new tab becomes active. Now I have to go back to my old tab, select 'Product B', and right-click search. Search becomes the active tab again. I have to go back to the initial tab AGAIN, highlight 'Product C', right-click search, etc etc.
As you can see, it becomes quite cumbersome. And it draws my attention away from the article I was reading, which is what I want to focus on, anyway.
Using Chrome, I'd just highlight and drag each of the three selections to the bar, have them open in the background, and continue reading. Much, much faster.
So maybe a better question is: is it possible to make the right-click search open in a background tab?
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lem729 last edited by
Yes, edwardmknight, I believe you can do what you want.
Here's an Opera extension, "Open (in background) tab"
https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/open-in-background-tab/?display=en
When you highlight text and then right click, as long as you have this Opera add-on, you get a context menu where you can open the search in the background, and you can also select from different search engines. In clicking on a link Opera seems to automatically open the link in the background. So that should help you too.
Once you have the extension, if you locate your Opera 20 Settings menu, and go into Options, you can even customize/configure it to have the search engine of your choice should it not be one of the listed ones.
Hope this helps you!
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lem729 last edited by
edwardmknight.
A slight correction on clicking on links.
I meant to say: if you "middle click" on a link, Opera automatically opens it in a new background tab. If you press shift, and middle click on the link, Opera opens it in a new foreground tab. If you just left click on the link, Opera opens the link over the tab you are in. So you have your choices on links and just have to get used to it.
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edwardmknight last edited by
Thanks for the suggestions, lem. I did my own search and found something even better (for anybody else interested):
A chrome extension called Context Menus (v 4.1.308)
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/context-menus/phlfmkfpmphogkomddckmggcfpmfchpn
Does everything the mixture of other extensions do, and more.
