I just wrote a Freebase search command for Ubiquity:
If you don’t know what Ubiquity is then watch the video.
Ubiquity is going to be awesome for Firefox power-users. One of the best things about Firefox is the extension eco-system and Ubiquity is going to make writing extensions much easier.
P.S. Ubiquity is only on v0.1 and executes 3rd-party code on your machine. You probably shouldn’t install it in your main Firefox profile just yet.
Fantastic work. I’m convinced Ubiquity is a strong step towards the future of the web.
Your extension is stupid-fast as well, it makes using freebase much more pleasant.
Thanks Peter!
This is awesome Will!
I was just about to work on one when I stumbled upon the command you have created. Great job! Makes the Firefox search plugins obsolete!
Hi Adrian, thanks, yeah Ubiquity totally blows the old plugin architecture away. I think it should even be possible to integrate Freebase type selection using dynamically generated Noun-Types.
Would be very cool to be able to type
freebase city worms – and get the city in Germany
freebase animal worms – and get the wriggly things.
Haven’t really thought it through yet, feel inspired yourself?
Hi Will,
I got this example working for performing a “BLAST” search (http://www.freebase.com/view/en/blast):
http://www.fuzziebrain.com/ubiquity/ncbiblast/
Using Ubiquity, you can enter the text “blast nucleotide sequence ACCTTTCAC” or specify “blast protein sequence GGYIMMCAP”. The terms “nucleotide” and “protein” are noun types, which are then used to determine the algorithm used for performing the search.
I’m guessing that the noun types (for Freebase types) can be populated using an AJAX call, which can then be used by users to select the Freebase type to search. I’ll test that out later since I can only use my work hours to do stuff on “/biology”.
Awesome job Will, thanks!