Specify region in the search, like a bang

insomnia-creator

Instead of %au, how about @au?

@ seems a much more understandable and better symbol.
Fully support this idea!

gesumin

Unless I'm imagining things I believe there already was a bang like option for the first part, after someone made a similar suggestion, but somehow I can't find it anymore. Either way, good idea.

Vlad

How do you propose we make this feature discoverable to the new user?

riddley

Vlad Well written, accessible documentation which encourages power users to read about available features

donbex

Vlad I know I'm kind of late to the party here, but you might want to look at DuckDuckGo for inspiration, since it offers a r: parameter specifically for this purpose, which is documented here.

GrzegorzP

I ofter switch between my country and International change. I'd love to to have a quick bang for that like !reg int phrase, !reg pl phrase.

TeMPOraL

I usually search in "International" mode, but quite regularly I find myself redoing the same query, but limited to my region. I also occasionally need to go in the other direction. My reasons are usually:

I first check "globally" for a term, but then want to see results from local sites;
I can't find anything relevant locally for a term that should return results, so I want to widen to "international" to see if there are better results in English, or if I've misspelled the name or something;
Because the region switch is "sticky", it's occasionally in the "wrong" mode for my current query, so I need to switch it back;

Currently, switching between international/regional search on Desktop requires using mouse to reach the little dropdown below the query, open it, and select the right setting. I'd like to avoid having to use my mouse for this, and ideally have a shortcut that just flips between "International" and the most recently used region. Less ideally, a shortcut that puts focus in the "settings" row below the query, so I could navigate to the region switch with arrows/hjkl.

Vlad

TeMPOraL was suggested through bang mechanism

Vlad

donbex We will implement it through bangs to keep syntax easier..

so !de will show results for Germany

seventhwave

Vlad I don't agree here.
it would be difficult to separate a "region bang" from a "standard bang"
we need a prefix for the user who wants to specify a region inline
a namespace like !r:de or !reg:de.

This "bang namespace" will help us for eliminate future bang clashes, and reduce mental fatigue
So, I'm against direct "country code bangs".

Vlad

One one side there is bang fatique, on the other is keeping it simple and consistent. Remembering !r:xx syntax sounds difficult already IMO

riddley

What happens when the ISO country code clashes with an existing duck duck go bang? E.g. I often use the existing duck duck go bang !au which searches the Arch Linux AUR repository.

I would also prefer the duck duck go syntax, r:au, it's easy to remember and type, is equivalent to the well-established site: syntax, and doesn't clash with bangs.

Browsing6853

My country's ISO code also clashes with an existing bang... I guess the only way to implement it correctly is investing in personalized bangs.

Vlad

We will have a way to perosnalize bangs soon.

donbex

Having to remember custom bang overrides would definitely result in "bang fatigue"... much more so than a simple scoped notation like r: or the proposed !r:. Clashes would also be confusing for people who, like me, come from years of using DuckDuckGo.

Vlad

So is the ask to change region selection to r: or !r: ?

If region can be altered in this way should we do it with other search settings? Which ones?

riddley

Vlad

So is the ask to change region selection to r: or !r: ?

The ask is to do it in a way that the 249 iso codes don't conflict with bangs. The syntax you use is arbitrary and I don't think anybody cares that much as long as you avoid the conflict.

Personally I now like r: because:

it's simple, clear and easy to type
it's consistent with existing site: syntax
it's the same as existing DDG syntax, creating a de-facto standard

But if it's simpler for you to implement !r: for technical reasons that would be fine too.

If region can be altered in this way should we do it with other search settings? Which ones?

Verbatim and safe search. For me personally these are only "nice to have", I can't see them being as useful as region control, but since you asked...

DDG has !safeon and !safeoff which seems good to me. My first thought is that !verbatimon is too annoying to type, so maybe !von and !voff? They look kind of ugly but are easy to type.