Implementing Themes in Angular JS for Susper

Adding themes to any website, makes it more interesting to use, and also helps customize the website according to personal preferences. This blog deals with how we implemented themes in Susper.
Susper offers the following themes

  • Default
  • Dark
  • Basic
  • Contrast
  • Terminal

This is how some of the themes look
Dark:

Contrast:  
Terminal:
Lets go through a step by step guide how to implement this:

  1. Add a Themes service  (In app/src/theme.service.ts in Susper)

Here is the code snippet:

import { Injectable } from ‘@angular/core’;

@Injectable()
export class ThemeService {

public titleColor: string;
public linkColor: string;
public descriptionColor: string;
public backgroundColor: string;

constructor() { }

}

  1.  Create a component for themes, and define functions for various themes in the .ts file.(src/app/theme/theme.component.ts in Susper)

Here is the example code:

import { Component, OnInit } from ‘@angular/core’;
import { ThemeService } from ‘../theme.service’;@Component({
selector: ‘app-theme’,
templateUrl: ‘./theme.component.html’,
styleUrls: [‘./theme.component.css’]
})
export class ThemeComponent implements OnInit {constructor(
private themeService: ThemeService
) { }ngOnInit() {
}darkTheme() {
this.themeService.backgroundColor = ‘#FFFFFF’;
this.themeService.titleColor = ‘#050404’;
this.themeService.linkColor = ‘#7E716E’;
this.themeService.descriptionColor = ‘#494443’;
}

defaultTheme() {
this.themeService.backgroundColor = ‘#FFFFFF’;
this.themeService.titleColor = ‘#1a0dab’;
this.themeService.linkColor = ‘#006621’;
this.themeService.descriptionColor = ‘#545454’;
}

basicTheme() {
this.themeService.backgroundColor = ‘#FFFFFF’;
this.themeService.titleColor = ‘#1a0dab’;
this.themeService.linkColor = ‘#494443’;
this.themeService.descriptionColor = ‘#7E716E’;
}

In the above code, the first few lines  include the constructor, which defines the theme service, and include a default function that runs as soon as the page is initialized.

We then see three kinds of themes implemented, dark, default and contrast. Let us examine the darkTheme:

darkTheme() {
this.themeService.backgroundColor = ‘#FFFFFF’;
this.themeService.titleColor = ‘#050404’;
this.themeService.linkColor = ‘#7E716E’;
this.themeService.descriptionColor = ‘#494443’;
}
  • The first line sets the background color of the screen(to white).
  • The second line is used to set the color of all the titles of the search results
  • The third line is used to set the link/url color
  • The fourth line sets the description color
    1.   Link the appropriate attributes in your html pages, using [style.’css-attribute’]

(src/app/results/results.component.html in Susper)

Following this example, you can link different parts of the html file to the attributes in your theme service and you are done!
If implementing this in a project like Susper, a few points of caution:

  • Make sure you write your spec.ts file well, and add your component for proper compilation and testing.
  • Do not forget to import the service into any component before you use it in its html files.

Resources 

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Implementing a Pagination Bar in Susper Angular JS Frontend

Searching on Susper most queries will have a number of search results. These results may span over several pages, and hence, a well designed pagination bar becomes essential for easy navigation. This blog deals with how we created the pagination bar in Susper. This is how the pagination bar in Susper looks:

There are a maximum of 10 pages displayed at any point of time.
At times you may have lesser results too:

where you can either directly click on a page or use the Previous and Next buttons for navigation. As you move along the pages, this is how it looks:

We will now see how we go about creating this bar.
The html source code( with a line by line explanation of the code):

<div class=“pagination-bar”>
<div class=“pagination-property” *ngIf=“noOfPages>1”>
<nav arialabel=“Page navigation” *ngIf=“(items$ | async)?.length!=0”>
  • Previous button is used to decrease the current page number, clicking on the first S in ‘Susper’ also accomplishes this task. Notice that this button is to be displayed only if you are not already on the first page of Susper.
<li class=“page-item” *ngFor=“let num of getNumber(maxPage)”><span class=“page-link” *ngIf=“presentPage>=4 && presentPage-3+num<=noOfPages” [class.active_page]=”getStyle(presentPage-3+num)”
(click)=”getPresentPage(presentPage-3+num)” href=“#”>

[class.active_page]=”getStyle(presentPage-3+num)” class=“page-text”>U

class=“page-number”>{{presentPage-3+num}}</span></span>
<span class=“page-link” *ngIf=“presentPage<4 && num<=noOfPages” [class.active_page]=”num+1 == presentPage (click)=”getPresentPage(num+1)”
href=“#”>

[class.active_page]=”num+1 == presentPage class=“page-text”>U</span>

class=“page-number”>{{num+1}}</span></span></li>

  • The above lines specify that we want to update our pagination bar only if the user has navigated more than the first three pages  
  • class.active_page gives correct css for the active page and getStyle() tells whether that particular page is active or not  
  • getPresentPage() uses the current page number to calculate which results to display  

<li class=“page-item”><span class=“page-link” (click)=”incPresentPage()”>

class=“page-text next”>SPER

</span></li>
<li class=“page-item2” *ngIf=“!getStyle(maxPage)”><span class=“spl” (click)=”incPresentPage()”>

class=“arrow”>>
class=“side-text”>Next

</span></li></ul>
</div>
</nav>
</div>

  • This part is used to increment the present page, and show the next/SPER message. Notice that it should be displayed only if you are not already on the last page

The attached typescript functions:

incPresentPage() {
this.presentPage = Math.min(this.noOfPages, this.presentPage + 1);
this.getPresentPage(this.presentPage);
}decPresentPage() {
this.presentPage = Math.max(1, this.presentPage 1);
this.getPresentPage(this.presentPage);
}
  • incPresentPage() increments the present page, if possible(that is you have not reached your maximum pages already).
  • decPresentPage() decrements the present page, if possible(that is you have not reached page 1 already).

getStyle(page) {
return ((this.presentPage) === page);
}
  • getStyle() returns true if passed page is the present page, useful to apply different css classes to the active page

getPresentPage(N) {
this.presentPage = N;
let urldata = Object.assign({}, this.searchdata);
urldata.start = (this.presentPage 1) * urldata.rows;
this.store.dispatch(new queryactions.QueryServerAction(urldata));}
  • getPresentPage () is used to change the page, and navigate to the page, with the correct rows of data

And you are done! You now have a working pagination bar to plugin at the bottom of your search results!

You can check out this elaborate tutorial on implementing Pagination bars from w3 schools : https://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_pagination.asp

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Making the footer-navigation bar stick to the bottom in Susper

In Susper, we have a navigation bar as a footer, as shown:

Previously this footer-navbar would appear immediately after the content, even if it was in the middle of the page. This is how the footer would appear:Since this could be a very common problem on a lot of websites, this blog deals with a simple hack for it.  

  1. Design your footer navbar as you please. You need not use any predefined bootstrap classes. You also need not specify any parameters regarding the position of the navbar (relative, absolute etc.).
  2. Enclose the rest of the data on your webpage in a div tag, do not forget to mention a class name or id name for the tag.  
  3. Now comes the simplest trick: Set a minimum height for your div! It is advisable to use vh (viewport-height) as your unit of measurement since it is easy to estimate how much of the viewport needs to be covered by your width.

This is how it is used in Susper:

Remember that each vh corresponds to one-hundredth of the viewport total height. So 100 vh here will mean a minimum height of the full viewport.

You can check the Susper repository for the source code or go through this link for alternate ways to create a sticky footer at the bottom.

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Refactor of Dropdown Menu in Susper

The first version of the Susper top menu was providing links to resources and tutorials. In the next version of the menu, we were looking for a menu with more colorful icons, a cleaner UI design and a menu that should appear on the homepage as well. In this blog, I will discuss about refactoring the dropdown menu. This is how earlier dropdown of Susper looks like:

We decided to create a separate component for the menu DropdownComponent.

At first, I created a drop down menu with matching dimensions similar to what Google follows. Then, I gave padding: 28px to create similar UI to market leader. This will make a dropdown menu with clean UI design. I replaced the old icons with colorful icons. In the dropdown we have:

  • Added more projects of FOSSASIA like eventyay, loklak, susi and main website of FOSSASIA. Here how it looks now :

The main problem I faced was aligning the content inside the dropdown and they should not get disturbed when the screen size changes.
I kept the each icon dimensions as 48 x 48 inside drop down menu. I also arranged them in a row. It was easy to use div element to create rows rather than using ul and li tags which were implemented earlier.

To create a horizontal grey line effect, I used the hr element. I made sure, padding remained the same above and below the horizontal line.

At the end of drop down menu, @mariobehling suggested instead of writing ‘more’, it should redirect to projects page of FOSSASIA.

This is how I worked on refactoring drop down menu and added it on the homepage as well.

Resources

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Using MockBackend to test Susper Angular Front-end Code

In this blog, I’ll be sharing how we are testing services which we are using in Susper development.We’re using Angular 4 in our project as tech stack and we use Jasmine for testing purpose.

Tests are written to avoid issues which occur again and again. For example: Since we have implemented knowledge graph, we faced a lot of issues like:

  • When a user enters a query, search results appear but knowledge graph does not appear.
  • When a fresh query is entered or page is refreshed, knowledge graph does not appear.
  • The API which we have used is not responding.

We overcome this issue by writing test. The data is being taken with the help of an API. So, it will require testing using HTTP. Instead of testing like this, there is a better way by using MockBackend.

Testing with MockBackend is a more sensible approach. This allows us to mock our responses and avoid hitting the actual backend which results in boosting our testing.

To use the MockBackend feature, it requires creating a mock. For knowledge-service it looks like this:

export const MockKnowledgeApi {
  results: {
    uri: ‘http://dbpedia.org/resource/Berlin’,
    label: ‘Berlin’,
  }
  MaxHits: 5
};

To use the MockBackend feature, import MockBackend, MockConnection, BaseRequestOptions and MockKnowledgeApi.

import { MockBackend, MockConnection } from ‘@angular/http/testing’;
import { MockKnowledgeApi } from ‘./shared/mock-backend/knowledge.mock’;
import { BaseRequestOptions } from ‘@angular/http’;

Create a mock setup. In this case, we will create mock setup w.r.t HTTP because data from API is being returned as HTTP. If data, is being returned in JSON format, create a mock setup w.r.t jsonp.

const mockHttp_provider = {
  provide: Http,
  deps: [MockBackend, BaseRequestOptions],
  useFactory: (backend: MockBackend,options: BaseRequestOptions) => {
    return new Http(backend, options);
}
};

Now, describe the test suite. Inside, describe the function, don’t import MockConnection. It will throw error since it is only used to create a fake backend. It should look like this:

providers: [
  KnowledgeapiService,
  MockBackend,
  BaseRequestOptions,
  mockHttp_provider,
]
Define service as KnowledgeService and backend as MockBackend. Inject both the services in beforeEach() function.
Now to actually test the service, create a query.

const searchquery = ‘Berlin’;

The written specs should look like this. I won’t go much in detail here, but I’ll cover up the key points of code.

it(‘should call knowledge service API and return the result’, () => {
backend.connections.subscribe((connection: MockConnection) => {
const options = new ResponseOptions({
body: JSON.stringify(MockKnowledgeApi)
});connection.mockRespond(new Response(options));
expect(connection.request.method).toEqual(RequestMethod.Get);
});
Here, mockRespond will mock our response and it will test whether the service is working or not. Already, we have defined a query.

It should have a link to API and should be equal to searchquery which we have defined already as ‘Berlin’.

expect(connection.request.url).toBe(
`http://lookup.dbpedia.org/api/search/KeywordSearch` +
`?&QueryString=${searchquery}`
);

At last, it will check if it’s working or not. If it’s working, then test case will pass. Please note, it will not hit the actual backend.

service.getsearchresults(searchquery).subscribe((res) => {
expect(res).toEqual(MockKnowledgeApi);
);
In this way, we have written tests for knowledge graph to avoid future issues. We will be adding tests like these for other services as well which are being used in Susper project.

Resources

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Filtering out a query in Solr for Susper

In this blog, I would like to share you how- we have implemented tabs feature in Susper.

When a search is attempted, results are fetched in results.component. Since there are many kinds of results being fetched from the server, how should we filter them in separate tabs? For example under the tab ‘All’: All kind of results are being fetched but .png or .mp3 which should be loaded under tabs ‘Images’ and ‘Videos’. The yacy server is written in Java on Solr technology. Going through Solr documents, we found the solution to filter queries using ‘fq’ parameter.

What is fq parameter?

‘fq’ stands for filter query. It returns the document which we want or in simple words returns filtered document. Documents will only be included in the result if they are at the intersection of the document sets resulting from each fq.

How we did we use fq parameter in Susper?

To explain it better, I’m sharing a code snippet here which has been written to filter out queries :

if (query[‘fq’]) {
  if (query[‘fq’].includes(‘png’)) {
    this.resultDisplay = ‘images’;
    urldata.fq = ‘url_file_ext_s:(png+OR+jpeg+OR+jpg+OR+gif)’;
} else if (query[‘fq’].includes(‘avi’)) {
    this.resultDisplay = ‘videos’;
} else {
  this.resultDisplay = ‘all’;
}
}

What is ongoing here is that we have subscribed to a query and used if and else conditions. query[‘fq’] simply filters out the query which has been subscribed. include(‘png’) and include(.avi) is clear that we are filtering out the documents with these tabs. This action happens when the user clicks on a tab.

If the user clicks on images tab: files with .png are displayed. If the user clicks on videos tab: files with .avi are displayed.

url_file_ext_s:() is simply another solr syntax to provide the document format.

The flowchart above explains more clearly, how fq parameter is filtering out documents without affecting the total number of documents which yacy fetches by indexing web pages based on the query.

Resources:

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Setting up Codecov in Susper repository hosted on Github

In this blog post, I’ll be discussing how we setup codecov in Susper.

  • What is Codecov and in what projects it is being used in FOSSASIA?

Codecov is a famous code coverage tool. It can be easily integrated with the services like Travis CI. Codecov also provides more features with the services like Docker.

Projects in FOSSASIA like Open Event Orga Server, Loklak search, Open Event Web App uses Codecov. Recently, in the Susper project also the code coverage tool has been configured.

  • How we setup Codecov in our project repository hosted on Github?

The simplest way to setup Codecov in a project repository is by installing codecov.io using the terminal command:

npm install --save-dev codecov.io

Susper works on tech-stack Angular 2 (we have recently upgraded it to Angular v4.1.3) recently. Angular comes with Karma and Jasmine for testing purpose. There are many repositories of FOSSASIA in which Codecov has been configured like this. But with, Angular this case is a little bit tricky. So, using alone:

bash <(curl -s https://codecov.io/bash)

won’t generate code coverage because of the presence of Karma and Jasmine. It will require two packages: istanbul as coverage reporter and jasmine as html reporter. I have discussed them below.

Install these two packages:

  • Karma-coverage-istanbul-reporter
  • npm install karma-coverage-istanbul-reporter --save-dev
  • Karma-jasmine html reporter
  • npm install karma-jasmine-html-reporter --save-dev

    After installing the codecov.io, the package.json will be updated as follows:

  • "devDependencies": {
      "codecov": "^2.2.0",
      "karma-coverage-istanbul-reporter": "^1.3.0",
      "karma-jasmine-html-reporter": "^0.2.2",
    }

    Add a script for testing:

  • "scripts": {
       "test": "ng test --single-run --code-coverage --reporters=coverage-istanbul"
    }

    Now generally, the codecov works better with Travis CI. With the one line bash <(curl -s https://codecov.io/bash) the code coverage can now be easily reported.

Here is a particular example of travis.yml from the project repository of Susper:

script:
 - ng test --single-run --code-coverage --reporters=coverage-istanbul
 - ng lint
 
after_success:
 - bash <(curl -s https://codecov.io/bash)
 - bash ./deploy.sh

Update karma.config.js as well:

Module.exports = function (config) {
  config.set({
    plugins: [
      require('karma-jasmine-html-reporter'),
      require('karma-coverage-istanbul-reporter')
    ],
    preprocessors: {
      'src/app/**/*.js': ['coverage']
    },
    client {
      clearContext: false
    },
    coverageIstanbulReporter: {
      reports: ['html', 'lcovonly'],
      fixWebpackSourcePaths: true
    },
    reporters: config.angularCli && config.angularCli.codeCoverage
      ? ['progress', 'coverage-istanbul'],
      : ['progress', 'kjhtml'],
  })
}

This karma.config.js is an example from the Susper project. Find out more here: https://github.com/fossasia/susper.com/pull/420
This is how we setup codecov in Susper repository. And like this way, it can be set up in other repositories as well which supports Angular 2 or 4 as tech stack.

Continue ReadingSetting up Codecov in Susper repository hosted on Github

Implementing Voice Search In Susper (in Chrome only)

Last week @mariobehling opened up an issue to implement voice search in Susper. Google Chrome provides an API to integrate Speech recognition feature with any website. More about API can be read here: https://shapeshed.com/html5-speech-recognition-api/

The explanation might be in Javascript but it has been written following syntax of Angular 4 and Typescript. So, I created a speech-service including files:

  • speech-service.ts
  • speech-service.spec.ts

Code for speech-service.ts: This is the code which will control the working of voice search.

import { Injectable, NgZone } from ‘@angular/core’;
import { Observable } from ‘rxjs/Rx’;
interface
IWindow extends Window {
  webkitSpeechRecognition: any;
}
@Injectable()
export
class SpeechService {

constructor(private zone: NgZone) { }

record(lang: string): Observable<string> {
  return Observable.create(observe => {
    const { webkitSpeechRecognition }: IWindow = <IWindow>window;

    const recognition = new webkitSpeechRecognition();

    recognition.continuous = true;
    recognition.interimResults = true;
    recognition.onresult = take => this.zone.run(() => observe.next(take.results.item(take.results.length 1).item(0).transcript)
);

    recognition.onerror = err =>observe.error(err);
    recognition.onend = () => observe.complete();
    recognition.lang = lang;
    recognition.start();
});
}
}

You can find more details about API following the link which I have provided above in starting. Here recognition.onend() => observe.complete() works as an important role here. Many developers forget to use it when working on voice search feature. It works like: whenever a user stops speaking, it will automatically understand that voice action has now been completed and the search can be attempted. And for this:

speechRecognition() {
  this.speech.record(‘en_US’).subscribe(voice => this.onquery(voice));
}

We have used speechRecognition() function. onquery() function is called when a query is entered in a search bar.

Default language has been set up as ‘en_US’ i.e English. We also created an interface to link it with the API which Google Chrome provides for adding voice search feature on any website.

I have also used a separate module by name NgZone. Now, what is NgZone? It is used as an injectable service for executing working inside or outside of the Angular zone. I won’t go into detail about this module much here. More about it can be found on angular-docs website.

We have also, implemented a microphone icon on search bar similar to Google. This is how Susper’s homepage looks like now:

This feature only works in Google Chrome browser and for Firefox it doesn’t. So, for Firefox browser there was no need to show ‘microphone’ icon since voice search does not work Firefox. What we did simply use CSS code like this:

@mozdocument urlprefix() {
  .microphone {
    display: none;
  }
}

@-moz-document url-prefix() is used to target elements for Firefox browser only. Hence using, this feature we made it possible to hide microphone icon from Firefox and make it appear in Chrome.

For first time users: To use voice search feature click on the microphone feature which will trigger speechRecognition() function and will ask you permission to allow your laptop/desktop microphone to detect your voice. Once allowing it, we’re done! Now the user can easily, use voice search feature on Susper to search for a random thing.

Continue ReadingImplementing Voice Search In Susper (in Chrome only)

Creating a drop up in Susper

We are accustomed to creating drop-downs in our navigation bars, but sometimes we are faced with the need of creating drop ups.

In Susper, we had to create a drop up for settings for the footer.

This is how it looks:

Let us see the step by step procedure to create the drop up:

  1. Write the required Html content (in Susper it is in the footer-navbar.component.html)
<span class="dropup">

 <a class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">Settings</a>

 <ul class="dropdown-menu" id="fsett">

   <li><a routerLink="/preferences">Search settings</a></li>

   <li><a routerLink="/advancedsearch">Advanced Search</a></li>

   <li><a routerLink="/crawlstartexpert" routerLinkActive="active">Crawl Job</a></li>

 </ul>

</span>

 

Make sure to link all the listed items in the drop down correctly. Notice that all of this has been put in the parent tag span, with class drop up

 

  1. We need to write the CSS part now:
.dropup{

cursor: pointer;

}

#fsett {

background: #fff;

border: 1px solid #999;

bottom: 30px;

padding: 10px 0;

position: absolute;

box-shadow: 0 2px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);

text-align: left;

z-index: 104;

margin-left: -85%;

margin-bottom: -9%;

}

#fsett a {

display: block;

line-height: 44px;

padding: 0 20px;

text-decoration: none;

white-space: nowrap;

}

#fsett a:hover {

text-decoration: underline;

background-color: white;

}

Here are some useful attributes, that can style your drop up:

  • Cursor: It sets your cursor to whatever you like when you move over the drop up. The pointer changes it to the hand symbol, default changes it to the standard arrow and so on…
  • Z-index: can be used to set the height of your elements, it is equal to its parent element by default, setting the z-index of something to more than that will make it have a higher stack order so it will be in the front.
  • Text-decoration: This attribute is used to add/remove decoration like underline for links.
  • Margin and position: Use margin-left and margin-right to set the position of the drop-up, combine it with position: absolute, to give absolute dimensions.
  • Box-shadow: This gives the drop up a shadow effect, which looks really nice. The first 3 parameters are for dimensions (X-offset, Y-offset, Blur). The rgba specifies colour, with parameters as (red-component, green-component, blue-component, opacity).
Continue ReadingCreating a drop up in Susper

Adding Susper as standard search engine in Firefox and Chrome

Have you ever seen on the sites like Google and DuckDuckGo, when a user visits their website they provide an option to add their search engine as default search provider. Similarly, we raised up an issue regarding the implementation of this feature.

Currently, we have implemented this feature but facing some issues. Here is a screenshot:

Code for implementing this feature:

  $(document).ready(function() {
    var isFirefox = typeof InstallTrigger!=='undefined';

     if (isFirefox === false) {
       $("#set-susper-default").remove();
       $(".input-group-btn").addClass("align-search-btn");
       $("#navbar-search").addClass("align-navsearch-btn");
     }

     if (window.external && window.external.IsSearchProviderInstalled) {
       var isInstalled = window.external.IsSearchProviderInstalled("http://susper.com");

     if (!isInstalled) {
       $("#set-susper-default").show();
     }
    }

    $("#install-susper").on("click", function() {
      window.external.AddSearchProvider("http://susper.com/susper.xml");
    });

    $("#cancel-installation").on("click", function() {
      $("#set-susper-default").remove();
    });
  });


You can see, right side a box to add search provider. But this feature was not working for Chrome since it has some different feature to add search providers because of AddSearchProvider() and window.external.IsSearchProviderInstalled() works only with some versions of Firefox and earlier they worked with Chrome as well but now they don’t. So to remove this feature from Chrome browser, we simply commented out the lines which are highlighted in the code as bold.

We are still having an issue like, if a user adds the search provider in Firefox by installing it and then he/she visits the site next time, that option still appears to be there. It should not appear again if Susper has been already added as default search provider. We’re working on it though.

  • What else we did for other browsers compatibility?
    We picked up the idea of adding an OpenSearch feature. It auto-discovers the search providers. What we did simply:
  1. Create an XML file as  yoursitename.xml and configure it like this:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
    <ShortName>[Name of your website]</ShortName>
    <Description>[Description of your website]</Description>
    <Url type="text/html" template="http://www.yourwebsite.com/search?q=site:[Site host] {searchTerms}"/>
    </OpenSearchDescription>
  2. Add an auto-discovery link in your main index.html file:
<link rel="search" href="//susper.com/susper.xml" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="susper.com"/>

We’re done! To see it in action, refresh the browser. The browser will auto-detect and tell you that a custom search engine was discovered and you can customise it according to your choice.

Check our susper.xml here:
https://github.com/fossasia/susper.com/blob/master/susper.xml

Continue ReadingAdding Susper as standard search engine in Firefox and Chrome