GoogleFramed

UPDATE: Like all screenscraping scum, this was a brittle beast, requiring updates every other month. It's currently in need of further updating. But have no fear, GoogleResultsWalker is here as a replacement... Now, for nostalgia's sake...

Google Framed in action

I've slapped together a little google-in-a-frame portal. You put your search request into a top-left frame. It then drops google results in small little nuggets down a thin left pane, under the request. When you hover over each link, it gives you the link google details in a tooltip (ala DHTML). When you click, of course, the right pane fills with the result. You can flip around in the results at lightning speed.

Try it here.

The html and perl code is here. Consider it GPL'ed. My search form (portal_nav.html) feeds into the perl processor (google_framed_results.pl), which takes the request, forms an official google request, gets the result, and parses it into the desired result.

The javascript tooltip code comes from Walter Zorn, thanks Walter!

Next I think I might try working on prefetching the first few results. I’m trying to get to the maximum google consumption rate that my brain can manage. Let me know what you think so far…

Development Notes

August 28, 2006 Google changed format in the last week or two. I am digging in to fix it - not sure if it's the search form or the search results yet. Either way, google_framed_results.pl needs to be updated to match.

September 30, 2006 Updated, working again. Much smaller results to fit more in the bottom left pane. Feedback welcome.

March 25, 2008 Updated to handle latest google results changes. Comments are inline rather than tooltipped.

March 27, 2008 Revised, better cleanup of sponsored links and footer.