Developed by Microsoft Extended from XML | Latest release 0.8 | |
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Open format? Yes, As part of Microsoft Open Specification Promise Website OpenService Accelerators Developer Guide | ||
Accelerators are a form of selection-based search which allow a user to invoke an online service from any other page using only the mouse introduced by Microsoft in Internet Explorer 8. Actions such as selecting the text or other objects will give users access to the usable Accelerator services (such as blogging with the selected text, or viewing a map of a selected geographical location), which can then be invoked with the selected object. According to Microsoft, Accelerators eliminate the need to copy and paste content between web pages. IE8 specifies an XML-based encoding which allows a web application or web service to be invoked as an Accelerator service. How the service will be invoked and for what categories of content it will show up are specified in the XML file. Similarities have been drawn between Accelerators and the controversial smart tags feature experimented with in the IE 6 Beta but withdrawn after criticism (though later included in MS Office).
Contents
History
Microsoft introduced accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 as "activities". It later renamed this to "accelerators".
IE8
Accelerators are included in IE8 by default as a type of add-on.
Sample Accelerator
This is an example of how to describe a map Accelerator using the OpenService Format:
Where are Accelerators stored?
Accelerator XML files are stored in the folder:
C:\Users\your-user-name\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Services\
Accelerator parameters are stored in the Windows registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettings\Activities