Reid Beels

Social calendar web app 30 Boxes launched yesterday and has been getting quite a bit of attention. The clean interface, tagging features, and sharing interface make it a joy to use but I have to say that its ‘killer feature’ is definately the ability to add events using a natural language interface (’fly to philly mar 21 6:04am tag travel springbreak’). While this makes entering events quick and easy, I wanted to make it even easier to access without breaking my workflow. I was considering writing a javascript bookmarklet when I realized there was an even easier and more elegant way to do it. I’ve long been a fan of AcidSearch, a Safari plugin that enhances the search field to access multiple search engines, and especially a feature that allowed easy access to these via a prefix to your search terms (for example, I can type ‘kg pine tar’ to go to the Pine Tar entry on the KoL Wiki). Since the process for submitting a search request is the same as submitting any other form, I constructed the proper query string based on 30 Boxes’ code and, I can now add calendar items simiply by typing ‘cal’ followed by my event description into the Safari search box.