Determine is typing in Chrome Browser (Omnibar/Address Bar)

Questions & Suggestions
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1

I good Maestros !

I have a situation where I want to determine if someone is typing in the Chrome OmniBar (here you type URLs, I guess it is referred to as *Omnibar).

So for example, I have some scripts triggered by someone typing, But in some situations I want the script to perform differently if someone is typing in the Address/Omni Bar in a Browser.

I've tried a few different approaches, I might have to try to determine if there is an Event that can determine is someone is in the Omnibar, but from what I have figured out so far, this is not necessairly an easy thing to do.

If anyone has any Ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Thank you Everyone for all of the good ideas I see here.

-Patrick.

2

I don't have Chrome (I hate it for seriously damaging my macOS in the past) but here are a couple of things you can check:

  1. Check if the Omnibar looks visually different when it is the active field. In most programs, when a text box is active, it has a thicker frame, to show the user that it's active. If this is true for Chrome, then you can use KM to perform a test based on an image search.
  2. Check if any of the menu items in the Chrome app change when the Omnibus is active. It is very common for apps to change the available set of menu items when an editable text window is open. If this is true for Chrome, we can use a KM action to test if that menu item is available or not. KM has support for this type of checking.

It may be very beneficial to you if you tell us what you are really trying to do here, as there may be other, better, solutions for your problem.

P.S. When you say you want to determine "if someone is typing" I think what you really mean is that you want to determine if the omnibar is the active field. It could be empty if the user hasn't started typing. Or it could be that the field is active but the user has stopped typing for 15 minutes. So what you probably mean is that you want to know if the field is active. This can probably be determined by one, or both, of my suggestions above.

P.S. I'm not sure if there is an AppleScript method to test the same thing. I asked AI if it is possible, and it did provide a 6-line solution, which I won't repeat because I don't fully understand it, but you can ask AI and get the answer yourself.