How To Combine Safari’s URL and Search Bars with Safari Omnibar

The combined URL and search bar is one of the best things in the user interface of Google’s Chrome browser. In Chrome a single input bar provides both the URL and Search bar functions. Chrome is smart enough to distinguish the difference between a URL and a search query.

Although by default Safari has a separate Search and URL bar. However, the Omnibar for Safari allows the users to combine Safari’s search bar and URL bar into one searchable input and strip away the spare search box and simplify the browser’s interface. In this article we explain how you can combine Safari’s URL and Search bars with Safari Omnibar.

Safari’s Omnibar works with different versions of Safari like 5 and 5.1. It also works for Mac OS X 10.6 and OS X 10.7. It is a SIMBL plugin but the installer itself also includes SIMBL.

You can download the Omnibar here. It is free and open source. All you need to do is to quit Safari, then run the pkg installer. The Omnibar will start working upon the next launch of browser with the search bar hidden on its own.

How to Uninstall the Omnibar

Once you have decided that you don’t want Omnibar on Safari anymore, go to the following path:

/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/

Remove ‘SafariOmnibar.bundle’, or if you want to merge these steps into a single string, issue the following command from command line:

rm /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/SafariOmnibar.bundle

You don’t have to delete the complete SIMBL plugin folder because the apps like Maximizer for Lion and Visor requires SIMBL in order to work.

via OSXDaily

How To Combine Safari’s URL and Search Bars with Safari Omnibar