How to choose a DuckDuckGo cheatsheet topic

Aug 29, 2015 by David Farrell

If you want to develop a DuckDuckGo cheatsheet and you’ve got the technicals down, the next task is to choose a cheatsheet topic. As with naming things, this can be harder than it sounds.

Certain topics are better suited to be cheatsheets than others; because the cheatsheet is a static file, it’s better to provide information which is unlikely to change, such as a list of the members of the Wu-Tang Clan. With that in mind, here are some good sources of inspiration for your cheatsheet.

Scan the cheatsheet corpus

Get inspiration from association. The DuckDuckGo goodie repo maintains all of the static cheatsheets. Have a look at them, maybe you’ll get an idea for something similar to what’s already been done. I made the GNU Screen cheatsheet after I saw the tmux one - there was a lot of copy and paste involved!

Check the instant answer request list

One way to get cheatsheet ideas is to think about technical and trivia subjects you’re interested in. That’s “supply”. Another way is to look at “demand” - i.e. what people have asked for. Helpfully, the DuckDuckGo community maintains an extensive list of instant answer ideas. Have a browse!

Mine Google AdWords

Another way to view demand is to check search traffic. This is an old SEO trick to find common associations with a keyword using the Google AdWords keywords planner tool. For example I used the tool to find the top 50 searches associated with the term “cheatsheet”:

Keyword	Avg. Monthly Searches (exact match only)
markdown cheatsheet	1900
vim cheatsheet	1600
git cheatsheet	1600
regex cheatsheet	1300
vi cheatsheet	1000
jquery cheatsheet	480
fantasy football cheatsheet	390
cheatsheets	390
html cheatsheet	390
subnet cheatsheet	390
python cheatsheet	390
fantasy football cheatsheets	320
xss cheatsheet	320
sql cheatsheet	320
gdb cheatsheet	320
emacs cheatsheet	260
latex cheatsheet	260
linux cheatsheet	210
screen cheatsheet	210
r cheatsheet	210
svn cheatsheet	170
php cheatsheet	170
html5 cheatsheet	170
sql injection cheatsheet	170
ruby cheatsheet	170
regular expression cheatsheet	140
bash cheatsheet	140
uml cheatsheet	140
css3 cheatsheet	110
xpath cheatsheet	90
perl cheatsheet	70
unix cheatsheet	70
django cheatsheet	70
subnet mask cheatsheet	70
c# cheatsheet	70
powershell cheatsheet	70
asciidoc cheatsheet	70
fantasy cheatsheet	50
rails cheatsheet	50
mediawiki cheatsheet	40
regular expressions cheatsheet	40
zfs cheatsheet	40
free fantasy football cheatsheets	30
dailybeast cheatsheet	30
dmv cheatsheet	30
fantasy football draft cheatsheet	30
fantasy baseball cheatsheet	30
photobert cheatsheet	30
cheatsheet html	30
autosys cheatsheet	30

If nothing in this list appeals, try searching against similar terms like “cheat sheet”, “help”, “FAQ” and “usage” to find something that inspires you.

Conclusion

Developing cheatsheets should be fun. If you’re wrestling with a potential cheatsheet topic remember that there is a large developer community waiting to help you. The DuckDuckHack site is a good source of information. It has a FAQ, a guide to picking the right plugin type for your idea and information on how to join the DuckDuckGo Slack site. Useful information can also be found in the quack and hack cheatsheet!

Once you’ve drafted your cheatsheet, consider using my cheatsheet checker tool. It finds common syntax and data errors which can make developing a cheatsheet easier.

This article was originally posted on PerlTricks.com.

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