If you are Java developer and Firefox user here’s a tip on how to quickly search Maven repository for a certain jar.
This can be quickly done using Firefox’s bookmark shortcut. Here’s how to do it step by step:
- I will use search for commons-io version 1.4 on maven2 repository of ibiblio.org as an example
- Go to Google.com and type the following into search box
site:ibiblio.org maven2 commons-io 1.4
- When search result loads copy the content of the URL field it should be
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=site:ibiblio.org+maven2+spring%202.5
- Right click on the bookmark toolbar and select “new Bookmark”
- Fill the form as shown. The trick is to replace dynamic part of your search “commons-io 1.4″ with “%s”
- Click “Add” and you are ready to do your search
- Right in URL field of your Firefox type
m2 commons-io 1.4
- Hit enter and enjoy your search results
- Needless to say you can do it for any other search engines or any types of GET request where you need to substitute part of the URL
Another quick way to search for a jar file in the central maven repository is to use the Jarvana.com maven repository search engine. Jarvana supports OpenSearch, so if you go to the Jarvana home page and click the down-arrow next to the Firefox search bar, you can add maven repository class searches, project (jar) searches, and content searches to your Firefox search bar.