An easier way to search the Apple dev forums
When hitting a wall in my iOS development, I usually try to find my solutions using Google. I usually find what I’m looking for (thank you stackoverflow), but there’s a few issues with this approach:
- The quality of the results is highly varying
- There’s a lot of results showing up on spam pages (like eFreedom)
- The Apple dev forums are probably better most of the times
The reason I’m not always using the Apple dev forums, is a combination of 1) how simple it is to use the Google search in Chrome and 2) how the Apple forums always seem to be 4 steps away when I’m looking for answers.
One could call it laziness, but being able to do searches really fast is important to me as I like to keep a high pace in development.
Getting easier access to the dev forums
So… I figured an easy way of solving this is to add the dev forums as a search engine in Chrome. And the good news is that it’s actually quite easy to set up:
- Right-click your address bar in Chrome
- Click “Edit search engines…” (or whatever it’s called in your language)
- Enter a name of your choice, as well as the keyword you want to use as a prefix to your search. I chose “app”, since it’s short and easy to remember.
- Enter the following URL (to make a regular search in the dev forums):
https://devforums.apple.com/search.jspa?resultTypes=MESSAGE&peopleEnabled=true&q=%s - Hit “OK”, and you’re done!
Using your new search engine
You’re now ready to use your new search engine:
- Click your address bar (or on Mac: Command+L and Win: Ctrl+L)
- Enter your keyword and your search phrase, e.g. “app Core Animations”
- Hit “Enter” to search
Please note that you’ll still be required to log in to the dev center if you haven’t done so recently (i.e. you still have a valid session).
A similar set-up is possible if you’re using Firefox, just go to the Mycroft project and create your own search engine plugin using the URL above.