I was using the newish Mac browser Arc to proofread something Rhonda wrote for school, and was confounded about where the URL bar was. Arc, like many newfangled apps, uses a hotkey-activated command palette to open a new URL (among other things). This is potentially confusing UI design for many users, but I happen to like this mode of interaction (starting, I supposed, with my love for LaunchBar).

ARC Browser’s Command Bar

Launchbar

In my quest for ever-more-Camino-like Mac browsers (think light and simple), I was looking for a browser to try out that had minimal UI chrome exposed by default. I forgot about Arc but then remembered that I had installed it and tried it for a bit.

I liked the command bar!

So I thought, maybe someone made a Safari extension. My first search led me to FinBar, a very cool riff on the idea.

FinBar reminds me of Paletro, which I wrote about here, in that it uses a hotkey-enacted palette to expose the menu bar options available to you in the active application. You can accomplish different things in different applications, but the key is, you are always using your keyboard.

;

FinBar in Ulysses