Yes, I know you can still do it blindly but it's very very finicky. Doesn't matter how the search bar would be brought back, even as a button on those mod shortcut panels that'd turn it on or off, anything would do.

This mod barely exists as is, and I don't believe the search bar is even possible to interact with through script.
You'll unfortunately have to either deal with it the way it is now and only use the keybinds to interact with it, or uninstall the mod.
Sorry I can't do more than this either way.