How a query is processed

The purpose of a query is to match with a shortcut. And shortcuts are organized by Namespaces: Every shortcut belongs exactly to one namespace.

Namespace setting

When calling Trovu without query parameters, 3 default namespaces will be set based on the browser's language settings. For instance, if the browser's language is de-DE, we will use these namespaces and their shortcut files:

• o.yml – planet namespace
• de.yml – German language namespace
• .de.yml – Germany namespace

Processing a query

Now, let's look at the processing of a query:

1. A query comes in, e.g. g foobar.
2. The current namespace setting is o,de,.de.

3. Given the namespaces, all the shortcuts are fetched from their YAML files into a JavaScript variable in the client.

   • The fetch() call checks also if the files are already in the browser cache, and only requests them from remote if they are not cached yet.
   • To reload the shortcuts, use the reload command (see below).

4. The query is parsed – in the client by JavaScript – into

   • keyword: g
   • argument: foobar
5. Based on the query and the namespace settings, the loaded shortcuts are searched whether they match a query with the keyword g and one argument, i.e. if they contain a shortcut keyed with g 1.
6. We find 2 matches:
   • one in o, pointing to google.com
   • and one in .de, pointing to google.de
7. From the found matches, the results are evaluated in namespace order.
8. Since namespace .de has higher priority than o, its URL is used for further processing
   • https://www.google.de/search?hl=<$language>&q=<query>&ie=utf-8
9. The <$language> placeholder is being replaced with the variable de.
10. The <query> placeholder is being replaced with the query argument foobar.
11. A redirect to the URL is made.

Reloading shortcuts

Since shortcuts are cached in the browser cache, you may want to reload them once they got updated. Do so by

• either prefixing a query: reload:g foobar
• or only calling reload.