Bangs (!)

A bang is a command, prefixed with !, typed into the search box. It redirects a query to another site, changes the search type, sets a time range, activates a lens, or applies a one-time ranking rule — without leaving Neuji.

Bang-anywhere

A bang need not come first, and the ! may lead or trail the trigger. These are equivalent:

!g vintage cameras
g! vintage cameras
vintage cameras !g
vintage cameras g!

Neuji removes the bang; the remaining text is the query. Only the first recognized bang takes effect. An unrecognized trigger is left in place and an ordinary search proceeds — a bang never breaks a search.

Route bangs — search another site

A route bang hands your query to another site's search. Neuji ships a familiar set:

!w byzantine empire       → Wikipedia search for "byzantine empire"
rust hashmap !so          → Stack Overflow search

Add your own route bangs in Settings → Search Control. A route bang is a URL template in which %s (also $1 or {}) is replaced with your encoded query — for example, https://www.example.com/search?q=%s. An advanced route bang may apply a capture-group regular expression to your query and substitute $1, $2, … into the template.

Lens bangs — turn on a lens

Activate any lens for one search by its slug:

!academic crispr review       → search "crispr review" with the Academic lens on
!smallweb home espresso       → boost indie/"small web" sites for this search

Scope bangs — region, language, time, and vertical

A bang can scope the search rather than route it.

Time range (recency):

!day climate summit           → results from the last 24 hours
!week ai funding              → last week

Accepted: !hour (or !h), !day (or !d/!24), !week/!w, !month, !year/!y.

Vertical (jump to images / news / video / shopping):

!img golden gate bridge       → image search
!news mars mission            → news search
!vid pasta from scratch       → video search
!shop wireless headphones     → shopping search

Accepted: !img/!image/!images, !news, !vid/!video/!videos, !shop/!shopping.

Region and language are available as scope shortcuts you add in Settings (a scope bang's target reads like region:de, language:fr, time:week, or vertical:image).

One-shot ranking bangs

Apply a ranking rule to this search only; nothing is saved:

!block pinterest.com macrame patterns
!raise arxiv.org diffusion models
!only stackoverflow.com async deadlock

The domain operand is the first token that looks like a domain (it contains a dot); the rest is your query, so the order is flexible — macrame patterns !block pinterest.com works too. A one-shot rule layers on top of your saved rules for that search.

Feeling lucky

Jump straight to the first result with a leading backslash, or a lone !:

\openstreetmap wiki
! openstreetmap wiki

Quick bangs (no !)

A bang marked as a quick bang fires when it is the first word without the leading ! — convenient for the ones you use constantly. Toggle "quick bang" on a shortcut in Settings → Search Control.