Using Macros in Live Search:

Yes, Macros are introduced in Live Search as well. Wondering what macros are gonna do in a searching portal?

Here we go!

 

Think of a situation where you want to “share” a search result that you are very interested in, with your friends or community. For example, a search result that shows your blog page on the top. Not just this, you can imagine of an interesting thing that you would like to share with your friends and community.

Community? Yes. You can even upload the macro to the Windows Live Community, so that others can make use of it.

Here is an example of a little complex search macro

mobile loc:in AND (prefer:nokia OR prefer:motorola) –CDMA

The above macro searches for “Non-CDMA Nokia and Motorola mobile phones in India”.

You can build any complex macro as you like and upload it to the Gallery. Any one can use the macro from the gallery.

A cool UI helps you build any complex macro in no time and you can even take a preview of the results of the macro. After you design a macro, give your Creator ID (it can be any unique id) and name the macro as you like. Now, the macro gets saved in the gallery.

The next time when you wanna use the same search criteria and dont like to build the search string again, you can search the same result using the macro name.

For ex, I have created a macro, which u can use on Live Search like this

macro:imaya_js.nokia_motorola_noncdma_phones

imaya_js - Creator ID

nokia_motorola_noncdma_phones - Macro Name

To build, save and share a macro, follow the below link

http://beta.search.live.com/macros/step2.aspx?FORM=ODJS&wizardType=advanced