This page contains installation instructions and a copy of the article on the Serenity Macros web site.
This zip file contain this file (readme.html), a html file to initiate autoscanning (autoscan.html), and 4 registry merge files, one for Australia, one for New Zealand, one for Great Britain, and one for America. Each sets the autoscan domains to their local country (us, au, nz, or uk), them the comman domains (incl mil and intl), then the Australian, New Zealand, and Great Britain (omiting here the country that appears first) domains (various reg files).
Select the reg file for your country and double click it, to view or edit a file before merging, right click and choose Edit.
The file Autoscan.html is the file that does the work. Copy is somewhere (My Documents?) and double click it. Add it to the favourites or the link bar.
Autoscanning is where a single word has prefixes and suffixes added to it to find a web site. If acme was entered in the address bar then IE4 would try www.acme.com, then www.acme.org, then www.acme.net, then www.acme.edu, stopping when it found a site to connect to. This page allows Autoscanning for IE5.
Enter the text to Autoscan for;
In IE4 if a single word was typed in the address bar then IE would Autoscan for an address. If the word was preceeded by a question mark (or either GO or FIND) or multiple words were typed then it would Autosearch. In IE5 Autoscan and Autosearch have been combined and the rules changed - Autosearch is tried first, and if there are no Autosearch results then Autoscan is tried.
It is unlikely that searching on a single word will not return a search hit, therefore IE effectively never Autoscans. This page forces Autoscanning.
The information to control what sites Autoscan tries is stored in the registry. The text below shows the default registry settings in reg file format (how to use is discussed below). First No. 1 is tried, then No. 2, ect, until a site is found. The %s is replaced by the term that is being autoscanned.
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\UrlTemplate] "1"="www.%s.com" "2"="www.%s.org" "3"="www.%s.net" "4"="www.%s.edu"
There is no localisation of these urlTemplates. People living in the USA would probably like autoscan to search their country domain. A registry file like thie one below will autoscan USA domains (a complete template is included for USA people in the zip file);
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\UrlTemplate] "1"="www.%s.com.us" "2"="www.%s.org.us" "3"="www.%s.net.us" "4"="www.%s.edu.us"
For people in Australia the next registry file scans Australian addresses then USA/International addresses (including the mil and intl domains). This template also tries web sites that don't use www as part of their address. For people from other countries replace the au with your own country codes. British and NZ people see further down.
To use this copy the lines in blue and paste into notepad then save as autoscan.reg. Double click.
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\UrlTemplate] "1"="www.%s.com.au" "2"="www.%s.org.au" "3"="www.%s.net.au" "4"="www.%s.edu.au" "5"="%s.com.au" "6"="%s.org.au" "7"="%s.net.au" "8"="%s.edu.au" "9"="www.%s.com" "10"="www.%s.org" "11"="www.%s.net" "12"="www.%s.edu" "13"="www.%s.mil" "14"="www.%s.intl" "15"="%s.com" "16"="%s.org" "17"="%s.net" "18"="%s.edu" "19"="%s.mil" "20"="%s.intl"
A template for New Zealanders is included in the zip file.
I'm only aware of two British domain naming systems - co.uk and ac.uk, a British reg file would look something like this;
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\UrlTemplate] "1"="www.%s.co.uk" "2"="www.%s.ac.uk" "3"="%s.co.uk" "4"="%s.ac.uk"
I hope I've provided enough information for you to modify these reg files to suit yourselfs. E-mail me with a list of your domains (or any other country's) and I'll add it here.
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