Safari Omnibox – How to Jump Directly to Search Results Like Chrome

If you're in to some work, then Glims with a custom search provider, and some AppleScript to create your own protocol handler (URL scheme) can do the trick. But I think pressing Command-Return is much easier. ;-)

Here's what you'd need:

1. Open Applications, AppleScript Editor, and paste the following:

   -- See http://superuser.com/questions/204435/
   on open location fullUrl
     -- fullUrl includes the URL scheme, like "newwindow:" or "newwindow://"
     set a to the offset of ":" in fullUrl
     set b to the offset of "//" in fullUrl
     if b = a + 1 then set a to a + 2
     set theUrl to text from (a + 1) to -1 of fullUrl
     -- Delegate the new URL to whatever is the default handler:
     tell application "System Events"
       open location theUrl
     end tell
   end open location
   
   -- Just in case this is invoked directly from Finder:
   set choice to button returned of (display dialog "Please use a URL like
       newwindow://http://google.com
   to use this." buttons {"More info...", "Cancel"})
   if choice = "More info..." then
     tell application "System Events"
       open location "http://superuser.com/questions/204435/"
     end tell
   end if
   

2. Select menu File, Save As, and be sure to select File Format: "Application". This will create something that looks like a single application, but actually holds a folder structure.

3. In Finder, find the place where you saved the application, right-click it and select "Show package contents".

4. Find file Contents/FileInfo.plist and open it with a text editor.

5. At the end, just above the last two lines </dict></plist>, add:

   <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
   <string>com.superuser.204435.NewWindow</string>
   <key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
   <array>
     <dict>
       <key>CFBundleURLName</key>
       <string>NewWindow</string>
       <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
       <array>
         <string>newwindow</string>
       </array>
     </dict>
   </array>
   

6. Move the whole application package into, for example, Application/Utilities (to ensure Launch Services registers it).

7. Test in any browser, using newwindow://http://www.google.com/search?q=abc. If it doesn't work, then double-click the application or even rename the package, just to trigger the discovery by Launch Services again.

8. Install the Glims plugin for Safari.

9. In Safari's preferences, tab sheet Glims, Search Engine List, add a new entry. Note that Glims requires the slashes after newwindow:. Without that, Glims would prefix http:// to whatever text you entered:

   newwindow://http://google.com/search?q=#query#
   

I don't know how to change the icon that Glims shows... Also, when using this, there's no key you can hold down to not open the results in a new window.

Safari => preferences => advanced => Check Press Tab to highlight each item on a webpage.

Love this in chrome myself. It still works a tiny bit better there, but checking that option makes it workable in safari.