shrike@: Do you know if this is intended behavior? It's always felt weird to me, but there might be a reason.

Just in case, here's a screen recording and comparison w/ other browsers:

Firefox: Same as Chrome.
Safari: Omnibox loses focus when switching tabs, unless destination tab is a new tab, then omnibox gains focus.
Edge: Same as Safari.

Deleted: omnibox_tab_specific_focus.mov 1.2 MB

omnibox_tab_specific_focus.mov 1.2 MB Download

That's Mac-specific, and IMO a bug.

Why does it make sense for the Omnibox to lose focus when you switch tabs? That's the opposite of what I expect.

My expectation is that Omnibox focus wouldn't change (if it's focused when I switch tabs, it stays focused).

(That's not what Safari does, as it turns out, but it's the expectation I stated in the description.)

If I'm typing something in the Omnibox, Cmd-Right Arrow to look at something in the next tab, then Cmr-Left Arrow to come back, I expect to be able to keep typing.

I guess you are seeing the Omnibox as this thing where you do some work/typing, and the content area where you also do some work/typing, and the two are not tightly coupled? I see the Omnibox and content area as being tied together - a tab is the Omnibox content and the web content which together comprise a single session within the browser. Each tab is a completely separate session from other tabs.

Interesting. I always thought of the Omnibox as part of the window, not the tab, so I'd have the same expectation in that situation but for different reasons (the Omnibox would not lose focus across the Cmd-Right, Cmd-Left).

Consciously looking at the window chrome, I can now see that the Omnibox is visually part of the tab. My best guess is that I built a different mental model because most of the items in the menu at the right of the nav bar apply to Chrome in general (history, bookmarks, settings, new window…), not the tab.

Heh - I think that menu should be removed. The back button, forward button, reload button, home button, and for me Omnibox all operate on the content of the tab. That means the menu button (whatever it's called today) should as well, and should not contain application-wide commands. However there are also extension icons, which can do things not necessarily related to the current tab content. In short, a bit of a UI mess :-).

I'm going to WontFix this, but we're meeting soon and discuss more if you like (and reopen as needed from there).

Already put it on my list :D. Agree with the WontFix.

(I got confused on comment 3, BTW.  I thought this bug was reporting the opposite of what it was.  The omnibox is part of the tab state, not the window state, so based on rereading this more closely, I think WontFixing this is consistent with other platforms and how we intended the visual hierarchy to work.)