About IE 7, ClearType and custom searches

By now, you've probably started using Internet Explorer 7 even if you are still using Windows XP and not Windows Vista. I've used IE 7 starting from the early Vista beta versions, and although I was a bit skeptical at first (I always liked IE 6), I quickly found tabbed browsing and the new search facility very useful.

Now, when I talk to people about IE 7, they often complain about the new interface (of course), but also about the font-smoothing ClearType technology, which is enabled by default. I believe it is enabled by default because many (most?) users already are using LCD screens instead of CRTs, but I could be wrong, too. Then again, I noticed that I don't personally enjoy ClearType on my 1600x1200 Nokia CRT screen, and so switched it off. However, on my laptop, I found the results to be better than without it.

Here's a tip if you are using LCD screens: download the free ClearType powertoy, which allows you to calibrate ClearType settings and thus improve the results. You can download it from Microsoft typography web pages.

My second tip is about adding custom search providers into IE 7's search box at top-right. Firstly, click the down-arrow button next to the search button, and choose Find More Providers. Notice the yellow box on the righthand side. Here, you can easily add a custom search engine to your IE, for example MSDN. This can be very useful.

A technical note about the custom search provides: these are specified using XML files (you guessed it) obeying the OpenSearch specification. For example, the custom search provider for MSDN would be:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
  <ShortName>MSDN</ShortName> 
  <Description>MSDN provider</Description> 
  <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding> 
  <Url type="text/html"
  template="http://search.msdn.microsoft.com/search/
  default.aspx?siteId=0&tab=0&query={searchTerms}" /> 
</OpenSearchDescription>

Because adding custom search providres is so easy, I immediately added Wikipedia as well.