Vuze FAQ

If you're comfortable with "regular expression" or JSON, these instructions are for you:

Vuze supports two kinds of custom search templates. The most common is "regular expression," which matches against the source code of a search results page. The second type, JSON, is for sites which provide data in JSON format.

To create a regexp template:

1) After clicking "Create a custom template" at the bottom of the "Add/edit" dialog, make sure "regular expression" is selected, and click "Continue."

2) Give your template a name, then use your browser to do a search on the site you're making the template for. Copy the URL into "URL to search," and replace your query term with "%s".

3) "Preview search term" can be any search keyword that gives multiple results. This must be filled in to get to step 5 (where you select which fields to show in the final search results).

4) Begin writing your regular expression by using your browser to View Source for a search on the external site. Find the HTML code for one search result, and copy it into the template editor. Then, replace every dynamic part of the code with characters like (.*?) or ([^>])

For parts that contain useful information, put capture brackets () around the expression. You can also click "Preview matches" to see which parts of the HTML code are matched by your regular expression.

5) When you're done, click "continue" to see the first five matches for your preview term. Use the menus to select what each of the captured fields represents, then click "Save and finish".

6) The template is now ready for use on your machine. To share it with others, click the "Export as file" button. This gives you a .vuze file that you can publish on a blog or website, and other people can import it by clicking "Add/Edit" from the search page.