OS X Yosemite Spotlight extensions

Question

Is it possible to extend spotlight\'s search feature to support additional commands?

For example, is it possible to define custom web search aliases, meaning I could typ

Answer 1

I have an alternate solution for you which I am currently using. It's native to the OS and does not require disabling System Integrity Protection in order to install Flashlight.

Using Automator to create a new Service. Then with Ask For Text node you can display a popup similar to spotlight. From there the possibility are numerous. For web search there is a command like Display Webpages. The top activate AppleScript command is for gaining focus of the following popup.

You can construct the URL from your input text using JavaScript node. You can parse "yt" to YouTube search url for example and put the rest after the space to the URL.

Then in Preference you can set this new service as a shortcut for easier access.