searxng/docs/user/search_syntax.rst
Martin Fischer 61935c72ef [fix] remove broken ? search operator
The ? search operator has been broken for some time and
currently only raises the question why it's still there.

## Context ##

The query "Paris !images" searches for "Paris" in the "images" category.

Once upon a time Searx supported "Paris ?images" to search for "Paris"
in the currently enabled categories and the "images" category.

The feature makes sense ... the ? syntax does not.
We will hopefully introduce a +!images syntax in the future.

Fixes #702.
2022-01-06 14:10:58 +01:00

1.6 KiB

Search syntax

SearXNG allows you to modify the default categories, engines and search language via the search query.

Prefix !

to set Category/engine

Prefix: :

to set language

Abbrevations of the engines and languages are also accepted. Engine/category modifiers are chainable and inclusive (e.g. with !it !ddg !wp qwer <?q=%21it%20%21ddg%20%21wp%20qwer> search in IT category and duckduckgo and wikipedia for qwer).

See the /preferences page <preferences> for the list of engines, categories and languages.

Examples

Search in wikipedia for qwer:

  • !wp qwer <?q=%21wp%20qwer> or
  • !wikipedia qwer :search:<?q=%21wikipedia%20qwer>

Image search:

  • !images Cthulhu <?q=%21images%20Cthulhu>

Custom language in wikipedia:

  • :hu !wp hackerspace <?q=%3Ahu%20%21wp%20hackerspace>

SearXNG does not support true multilingual search. You have to use the language prefix in your search query when searching in a different language.

But there is a workaround: By adding a new search engine with a different language, SearXNG will search in your default and other language.

Example configuration in settings.yml for a German and English speaker:
search:
    language : "de"
    ...

engines:
  - name : google english
    engine : google
    language : english
    ...

When searching, the default google engine will return German results and "google english" will return English results.