how to create a namespace for url?

[DaveLembke]

Seen namespaces before used so that you can type part of a domain name with out the full path, as well as I believe you can make anything for a namespace name = any url path, but cant seem to find any info on making namespaces for url's to have a custom shorthand for my home computer browser. I have never seen this done on a regular home computer and always at a company where there are workstations which are part of a domain and of which have group policy's etc passed down from domain controllers etc. Can namespaces be added to a single home user computer or is it part of a server setup such as a proxy?

 I am thinking I would just have to edit the HOSTS file maybe to make this work, but that might be the ugly method to make this happen. So would I have to edit the HOSTS file to point to the full URL path for whatever I want as a namespace or is there a better method?

[Geek-9pm]

It is hard to understand what you want to do.
You can make a HTML page with URLs in it and give them short names. On you can have a folder on the desktop that has shortcuts and URLs with shot names. For example, here is a folder I can open  from my desktop, it is called 'MoreLinks' which has both internet and program shortcuts in one place. I can rename them what ever I want and to invoke any all I have to do is just click on it. The internet shortcuts are made by the browser with a flick and click of the mouse. (Takes a little practice.)


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[DaveLembke]

Hello Geek-9pm

The URL namespace is like being able to type ABCD into your browsers URL without http://www and the following.com and have it resolve to say www.yahoo.com. I am thinking that you could create a namespace as short as a single character maybe if not a double character to have say G bring you to Google, Y bring you to Yahoo, and F bring you to facebook, although might need to use double characters minimum so that it doesnt think its a drive letter such as a mapped or local drive at G: , Y: , or F:

I have seen namespaces used in the URL bar in corporate networks to be able to type in say ABCD and that then cross references to somewhere in the system that directs that ABCD namespace to the desired location. I was thinking today about how cool it would be to be able to type in a single character or double character for frequently visited sites without use of favorites list or creating a custom web page with hyperlinks to the list of frequently visited places.

I am thinking I might be able to do this by tweaking my HOSTS file to tell it that Y or YY=www.yahoo.com and G or GG = www.google.com and F or FF = www.facebook.com as well as some other sites that have very long url paths that cane be a simple ZZ and enter key. But before tweaking my HOSTS file, I figured I would run this by everyone to see if this is the correct way to do this or if there is a more professional method than a HOSTS DNS tweak. Most people use the HOSTS file to create a black listing pointing to 127.0.0.1 to terminate to local loop back IP for sites you want to block access to etc. But I am thinking it might work for a namespace to function maybe although maybe a crude tweak of the HOSTS file for something it may not have been intended for.

[soybean]

The URL namespace is like being able to type ABCD into your browsers URL without http://www and the following.com and have it resolve to say www.yahoo.com.

There's no need to type http:// in your browsers address box.  Your browser will add that.  And, for a .com website, the www and the .com do not need to be typed.  For example, to go to Yahoo!'s website, just type yahoo and hit Ctrl/Enter.  Your browser will supply the www and the .com.  And, the next time you go to Yahoo!'s website, just typing y in your browser's address box will bring up www.yahoo.com unless you've cleared your browser cache and if you have not visited other sites that start with y.  If you have visited other sites that start with y, then you may need to type one or two more letters, i.e. a, maybe h, and so forth, depending on the degree of similarity of the other addresses starting with y.

Right now, if I just type f, facebook.com/ appears in the address box and I can just hit Enter to go to the website.  I'm using Opera at the moment but Firefox does the same.

You can also the Speed Dial feature with Opera or Firefox.  With you can also enable the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox or the Bookmarks Bar in Opera to display most frequently visited sites on a toolbar at the top of the browser.  So, I don't see the need for the "namespace" idea.

[kpac]

If you use Firefox and the default address bar behaviour is to Google's I'm Feeling Lucky search, then all you need to do is type what you want and press enter, e.g. "yahoo" will bring you to yahoo.com, "yahoo mail" will bring you to mail.yahoo.com, "gmail" will bring you to mail.google.com etc.