Another Hack by the pickle: Hacking your Netscape Search and Guide URLs

Netscape Communicator/Navigator 4.0 and later changed the format of the toolbar button resources so that previous hacks for changing the search and guide URLs would no longer work. Thanks to a hack on ResExcellence, I was able to determine the new location of these URLs and I now provide a detailed guide to hacking the Netscape URLs.

The standard preliminaries apply - get a copy of ResEdit or SuperResEdit and make a duplicate of your Netscape Navigator/Communicator application. Once you've done that, open the copy in your resource editor of choice.

Now, do the following:

1. Open the TEXT resources and open the one named 'config' (ID 3011 in Communicator 4.5). You will see a screen full of JavaScript-like code. The editing we're going to be doing is entirely within the following three "paragraphs"

   config("toolbar.places.item_0.label","The Internet");
   config("toolbar.places.item_0.url","http://guide.netscape.com");
   config("toolbar.places.item_1.label","People");
   config("toolbar.places.item_1.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/people.html");
   config("toolbar.places.item_2.label","Yellow Pages");
   config("toolbar.places.item_2.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/yellow_pages.html");
   config("toolbar.places.item_3.label","What's New");
   config("toolbar.places.item_3.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/whats_new.html");
   config("toolbar.places.item_4.label","What's Cool");
   config("toolbar.places.item_4.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/whats_cool.html");
    
   config("internal_url.net_search.url","http://home.netscape.com/bookmark/4_5/tsearch.html");
   config("internal_url.more_info_plugin.url","http://cgi.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/extensions/info.cgi");
   config("internal_url.default_template.url","http://home.netscape.com/home/gold3.0_templates.html");
   config("internal_url.page_from_wizard.url","http://home.netscape.com/home/gold4.0_wizard.html");
   
   config("menu.places.item_0.label","The Internet");
   config("menu.places.item_0.url","http://guide.netscape.com");
   config("menu.places.item_1.label","People");
   config("menu.places.item_1.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/people.html");
   config("menu.places.item_2.label","Yellow Pages");
   config("menu.places.item_2.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/yellow_pages.html");
   config("menu.places.item_3.label","What's New");
   config("menu.places.item_3.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/whats_new.html");
   config("menu.places.item_4.label","What's Cool");
   config("menu.places.item_4.url","http://guide.netscape.com/guide/whats_cool.html");
   

2. The first "paragraph" contains the Places toolbar's buttons' URLs. Leave the "label" fields alone and change the URL immediately below the label to what you want it to point to. Example: if you want to change "The Internet" URL to http://www.yahoo.com, change the text immediately below it, "http://guide.netscape.com", to "http://www.yahoo.com".
3. The second "paragraph" contains the "Search Internet" URL, defaulted to "http://home.netscape.com/bookmark/4_5/tsearch.html". Simply change this URL to whatever search engine you prefer most.
4. The third "paragraph" contains the URLs from the Guide submenu of the Bookmarks menu. They are the same five URLs as in the first "paragraph", so if you change anything in the first paragraph, be sure to change these too, and vice versa.
5. Save your changes and quit the resource editor, launch the modified copy of Netscape, and you should be all set. Don't forget to replace the old Netscape with your customised version after you verify that it works properly.

DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for ANY damage you do to your computer, your software, yourself, or others as a result of this hack. YOU, the user, are ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS. Recognition with which this hack has been honored:

• Featured on ResExcellence, Monday, 11 January 1999.