how open a web search

[rnd me]

i can easily open a google URL to search for a desired string by parsing the address.

but:

how can i search the web with a user's default search engine?

i am trying to avoid 'terms of service' complications associated with favoring one particular search provider.

for example: if i submited beatles, it would search the web using MSN by default, or if they had set up thier search bar, google or yahoo.

can i specify some type of special URL to shellexecute, or will i have to make a webbrowser control to figure it out?

any help welcome!

[Keithuk]

Well if you look at the address in the search engine that will give you some idea of the format to ShellExecute.

Google search for visual basic

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

Yahoo search

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=vis...&cop=&ei=UTF-8

Altavista search

http://uk.altavista.com/web/results?...ic&kgs=1&kls=0

So you can see where visual basic fits in.

[rnd me]

Well if you look at the address in the search engine that will give you some idea of the format to ShellExecute.

Google search for visual basic

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

Yahoo search

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=vis...&cop=&ei=UTF-8

Altavista search

http://uk.altavista.com/web/results?...ic&kgs=1&kls=0

So you can see where visual basic fits in.

thanks for the reply.
i have no problem parsing urls, submitting, etc.
i was wondering if there is a generic search method i could use instead of specifying a particular engine.

in other words, i want to mimic the 'auto search' feature of windows, invoked when a non-url is typed into the address bar of an explorer window.

if it were up to me, i would just use google all the time, but i read recently about google suing M$ over Vista using MSN as the default search engine.
i figure if i could use the user's default, i would avoid any such problems arrising from favoring a particular site.

any ideas on how to invoke an auto search?

[baja_yu]

Give users the option to select the search engine out of a small list of better ones.

[rory]

in IE use "GO keyword"