No site-specific suggestions with suggestion URL template

toveglissom

Under Orion -> Settings -> Manage Search Engines..., I add a suggestion URL template for Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=opensearch&search=%s, along with a name, search URL template, and keyword w. When I enter input into the Orion URL bar starting with the keyword (or without it), I do not get suggestions from Wikipedia. The search template works fine with the keyword. Same thing when I try other sites with suggestion APIs including Google and DuckDuckGo.

The page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=opensearch&search=Example shows search suggestions for "Example" in JSON format. I expected to see these as suggestions when I type w Example into the URL bar. Whether or not this is how the feature is meant to be used, I would like the documentation to explain the right usage with an example because the documentation leaves it somewhat ambiguous.

Version 0.99.136-beta (WebKit 622.1.15.19.2) Build date September 03, 2025 Mac 15.6 (Build 24G84)

Sequoia (15)

laiz

I agree; the documentation could be clarified regarding this. When I wrote the documentation page for custom search engines, for some reason I didn't even consider that someone would want to see search suggestions for their keyword-activated custom searches.

My understanding is the following:

The suggestions URL template is only relevant when that custom engine is set as the main search engine Orion uses in Settings → Search.
For keyword-based searches (e.g., w mx-5 with the config below), you are only offered the quick search as the Top Hit option.

Now, a suggestion for allowing quick custom searches to also trigger search suggestions could be made. I don't think I've seen a suggestion for that yet. In that case, the main question to answer is what happens to the search suggestions of the main search engine the user has configured: would they be replaced or also shown when using a keyword to trigger a custom search engine?

toveglissom

Ah, thanks for the clarification! I see that it works as expected when the custom search engine is the main search engine, which is already better than I'm used to. I was hoping for something like Chrome's behavior for Wikipedia search, where once I've activated it with my keyword I get the top suggestions, plus top hits or bookmarks below them if there are any. (As far as I know this only works for Wikipedia in Chrome on Mac, and you can't put in your own suggestion URL templates.) I don't know how others use custom search engines but for me it's mostly narrow search like wikis rather than alternative general engines, so I wouldn't want main search engine suggestions here. I'd probably want to keep an option to actually search the main engine for "w example". (In Chrome I would do this by hitting backspace after the keyword, but having it in the dropdown is fine.)