Ubuntu – How to create an Ask Ubuntu search button in gnome-shell

Gnome-Shell search providers are described by XML files in the folder /usr/share/gnome-shell/search_providers

You will notice two XML files - google.xml and wikipedia.xml

Lets create a new search provider - copy the google.xml file as a template

11.10

sudo cp /usr/share/gnome-shell/search_providers/google.xml /usr/share/gnome-shell/search_providers/duckduckgo.xml

12.04

sudo cp /usr/share/gnome-shell/open-search-providers/google.xml /usr/share/gnome-shell/open-search-providers/duckduckgo.xml

Now lets open the file and change some details to search with duckduckgo:

11.10

sudo nano /usr/share/gnome-shell/search_providers/duckduckgo.xml

12.04

sudo nano /usr/share/gnome-shell/open-search-providers/duckduckgo.xml

Change the following XML tags:

<ShortName>DuckDuckGo</ShortName>
<Description>DuckDuckGo Search</Description>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}"/>

The only difficult part is finding out how a search engine searches - in duckduckgo I searched for something - you see in the title bar how the search provider adds its search terms

final result

In order to see the changes, you need to restart GNOME Shell by pressing Alt+F2, typing "r" and pressing enter.

Linked Questions:

1. Is it possible to re-arrange the search providers on the GNOME Shell Activities Overview display?

Following the changes provided by the GNOME group, many of the "visual errors" are fixed in the following versions after the one you mentioned in your question (Assuming you have the latest one from the date you posted the answer).

A simple (HUGE) update of your Gnome shell should solve this. You can find how to install the PPA right here on askubuntu.

Here is the changes for the 3.2 Version and the 3.4 version:

Gnome 3.2 - http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.2/

Gnome 3.4 - http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.4/