Search is probably the most desired feature for Google Reader. If you read by folders, or read a lot of feeds each day, it can be very confusing trying to find an item you read in the past. I personally have spent 20 minutes looking for a single item, and in the end, I couldn’t find it. The other day, while I was searching for a solution, I even went as far as downloading an offline feed reader with search capabilities. It didn’t feel right though, and I eventually flocked back to Google Reader, with its starring and sharing powers.
Today I came across this amazing solution from Google Operating System. It explains how you can use Google Co-op and a Greasemonkey script to add a search box to your Google Reader account. The method itself is surprisingly simple. All you have to do is export your subscriptions from Google reader in an XML file. Then, after you create your co-op search engine, you add the xml file. Your search engine will then only search through the URL for the feeds in the XML file. After that, you edit a line of code in the Greasemonkey script so the search box points towards your engine.
I just implemented this today, and wow am I impressed! At first, the box would direct me to the homepage of my search engine, no matter what I typed in the box. I quickly realized though, that I accidently configured the Greasemonkey script wrong, by removing all text after the &q=searchquery. I solved this almost immideatly though, and now I am a happy camper!
BLABLA
The only potential downside I can think of this is that you must update your XML file every time you add a feed. It will still suffice until Google adds an official search feature.
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Why wouldn’t google think to add this feature. Crazy.