Oh. I see, It's worse than I thought. There's no longer any way to switch search engines on the fly. (You've got to go through menus, which is obviously not a good alternative.)

This useful functionality has been removed, has it been replaced with an alternative workflow?

(I suppose this is to discourage people from using search engines other than the paid default. Too bad. )

Hi apLundell, the search bar changed in Firefox 34. From Firefox 34 through 42, the old code was kept in Firefox while issues were resolved with the new bar, but now the code for the old bar is completely gone.

Users of the Classic Theme Restorer extension have reported that it contains the code for the old bar and can restore it. I have not tested that myself.

What should happen on the new bar is the moment you type anything into the bar, or if you click in the bar and press the down arrow key, the default search engine should be displayed on a line immediately below the text. Does that work for you? Or is the problem that you are searching from another bar?

There sometimes is an issue in the new search bar with the mouse pointer moving over another part of the search panel and activating a different "button" as the action to be taken when you press Enter. I'm not aware of a fix for that.

apLundell said

Oh. I see, It's worse than I thought. There's no longer any way to switch search engines on the fly. (You've got to go through menus, which is obviously not a good alternative.)

You can change the default from the search bar using the keyboard. While the cursor is in the search bar, use Ctrl+Down Arrow to cycle forward through the plugins, and Ctrl+Up Arrow to cycle backwards through them. You'll see the change just below the box.

Unfortunately, the ones you hid from the one-click section are also included, so dragging the least useful search engines to the bottom of the list (or removing them) will maximize your efficiency in making quick changes.

jscher2000 said

You can change the default from the search bar using the keyboard. While the cursor is in the search bar, use Ctrl+Down Arrow to cycle forward through the plugins, and Ctrl+Up Arrow to cycle backwards through them. You'll see the change just below the box.

Ah, well that's better than nothing. Thank you.

This is an extremely hidden feature, though. Which confuses me. I don't understand why this functionality is being phased out. The new UI doesn't seem to have any advantages, it just has less functionality. Not even less features in a "more streamlined" way, just less functionality with the same UI complexity. Very strange.

I think the new design was preferred by people who wanted to use one of the other search engine plugins one time without changing their default. You can't please everyone, obviously!

I think it would be a good idea to add the Ctrl+Up/Ctrl+Down to the main article. If you like, you can edit it: Search with the Firefox Address Bar.

jscher2000 said

I think the new design was preferred by people who wanted to use one of the other search engine plugins one time without changing their default.

I guess. Still seems like a strange way of making that change, though. They could have just made THAT an option, instead of changing the UI.

Now you can't choose your search engine until after you've finished typing. So you have to go mouse-keyboard-mouse instead of mouse-keyboard. (And you have to do it every time, because it doesn't change the default.)

Oh well. The control keys is a good enough work around for now. Thank you.

I think it would be a good idea to add the Ctrl+Up/Ctrl+Down to the main article. If you like, you can edit it: Use the Search bar in Firefox.

I think I'll leave this to someone who's a better writer than me. I gave it a shot, but I couldn't help but feel I was just cluttering the page with trivia, so I didn't commit it.

You can use the cursor Down key to open the drop-down list and select what search engine to use. You can use Ctrl+Up/Down to switch the default search engine.

I found a way, by accident. I must point out that I use the Classic Theme Restorer mentioned by jscher2000.

After clicking on the hamburger menu and choosing "Customize" ("Aanpassen" in my Dutch version), you should be able to see a button stating "Old search" at the bottom of the screen. Grey the button by clicking on it, and your current search engine is shown again.