Omnibar
In recent times, I grew to appreciate vertical tabs, as implemented in browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. Sadly, each time after trying out another browser in any capacity I find myself going back to Safari. This could be due to reasons including its speed at loading websites and JavaScript, reasonable adherence to macOS UI / UX conventions and integration with other Apple devices, mainly the iPhone. However, each time I switched back to it, I grew to miss vertical tabs. The closest feature to the other two aforementioned browsers’ vertical tab views in Safari has been Safari’s sidebar, which contains most of the features expected from a vertical tab view. Sadly, this mode usually requires tabs to also be somewhere else on the screen to be usable (Safari regular mode shows tabs under the toolbar, while compact mode shows tabs in line with the URL bar). After some frustration, I opened Codex and developed a Safari extension to make vertical tab use a bit more bearable.
Omnibar for Safari
Omnibar for Safari is a browser extension for the desktop version of Safari which contains a URL bar usable in compact mode. Since Safari does not support adding interface elements such as an entirely new textbox URL bar straight into its toolbar, a compromise was made and Omnibar’s interface is hidden behind an extension button. After clicking on it, Omnibar lets you input URLs and search queries, and then open them either in the current or a new tab. Furthermore, Omnibar supports searching via various search engines (including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia and my personal favorite, Kagi), with an option to add additional search engines (which is inexplicably missing from vanilla Safari). When Kagi is configured as a search engine, an interface option appears which lets the user input their Kagi search token, for use with private search.
Technical details
I wanted the UI of this extension to have a Liquid Glass appearance, matching Safari’s native popovers (such as Downloads and Settings). Due to this (and it being purely a Desktop Safari extension), a decision was made to develop the extension in Objective-C / AppKit with the Safari App Extensions API. Search engines are stored locally, while the Kagi search token is stored in the device Keychain. The extension is available under the BSD 2-clause License.