Get text (not url) from address bar in Google Chrome

Question

I want to retrieve the text that the user has typed into the currently visible address bar, using Javascript. This is for google chrome only.

Is this possible? I kno

Answer 1

It seems this will be supported by chrome extensions in the future.

For the time being, depending on your needs, the closest you could ever get would be to fake a second address bar just below the real one, styling it so it looks like a double address bar.

This would be implemented via a DOM bar, akin to StumbleUpon's, kinda like Chrome's own infobars. But being your content-script's JS, you would have full control over it, and as I said, depending on your needs it could be a sub-optimal solution for your users.

The only advantage I can see over native support (when it comes) is that, if you want to use the address bar for things other than the url, then you'd do it in the fake bar and still keep the page's url accessible to the user at all times in the native bar.