Dear @lnikkila,

Thank you very much for your extension!

I tried using it for the following website featuring a news livestream: http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/livestreams/index.html

The website properly opens in a tab but the video is not played. Does it work for you?

Thankfully,

Robert

When a site uses a browser feature, such as the microphone, location, camera or notifications, it needs to request permission from the user.

I suspect that these permissions are not inherited by panels from the original website and when the site in the panel requests them, there is no interface to grant them.

An example would be http://rabb.it

If anyone has some neat use cases, feel free to pitch in!

Currently thinking of showcasing:

• Netflix
• WhatsApp
• Google Keep

The verdict seems to be final: the panel window type is on its way out of Chrome.

A few months ago I thought this was going to be the end for Panel Tabs. If there’s no way to create panels anymore, what is there left to do?

Well, since Panel Tabs was based on an experimental feature anyway, I could at least experiment with different options that might let me replicate (part of) the current functionality.

And hey, presto! I think I figured out a way that’s actually pretty good. Here’s a screenshot:

This change would bring quite a few nice possibilities with it:

• stability
• better control over panel look and feel
• more accessible first-time setup
• no chrome://flags or chrome://restart required

Roadmap

Behaviour

• Detached panels
  • Move
  • Resize
• Docked panels
  • Dock to the bottom edge
  • Re-arrange when moved
  • Detach when dragged away
  • Resistance when detaching
• Minimised panels
  • Hide everything except the title bar
  • Toggle moving
  • Toggle resizing

Appearance

• Docked & detached panels
  • Basic UI
  • Favicon
  • Close icon
  • Put back icon
  • Enter/exit animation
• Docked panels
  • Minimise icon
• Minimised panels
  • Indication of clickability
  • Shrinking animation

Users (like me) are likely to look for controls near the thing that they want to control – in this case the tab.

2 ways this could be implemented:

• An additional icon in the panel’s title bar for (a curved arrow going up, maybe)
• Add "Put back" to the panel’s context menu

I use Panel Tabs all the time, by the way. Love it :)

See #15.

This feature is supposed to help “power users” to use the extension faster now that opening a panel requires two clicks. You can get a glimpse of my reasoning for the change on the wiki.

Perhaps there could be a keyboard shortcut for minimising panels, since there seems to be simple way of them minimising automatically ( #15 ).

cmd-m, perhaps?

Setting the position might only be available for detached panels.

I'm running a two monitor setup. When I make a panel, it automatically goes to the bottom right of my right-hand monitor. If I drag it into the left monitor, it loses it's "stay on top" behaviour.

Running ubuntu 14.04

Let videos be expanded to the entire panel. On Twitch and YouTube this is a problem because the websites are not necessarily responsive, and have headers and such that get in the way of the content.

As described in #24.

Implementation details: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/optionsV2

Extending the feature in #37 , can this be added to bookmarks as well? ie Right-click a bookmark to bring up the same option. Additionally, a way to set a specific bookmark so they always open in a new panel? Thanks!

Due to the recent changes in Chrome I’ve decided to stop maintaining Panel Tabs. I’ve written a more thorough blog post with details, please check it out here. Thanks for the support along the way!

I use the Cloud9 online code editor on a Chromebook. A panel works nicely for this because the bookmarks and address bars are hidden and the program icon at the bottom right makes it easy to quickly minimize the window while reading documentation. However the panel is somewhat small on an 11" screen. Any chance of making the size adjustable?

• Chrome 42-43, a new clean profile with just the PanelTabs extension installed.
• Open a moderately complex page like https://github.com/explore and convert it to a panel via hotkey
• For almost 1 second the panel will have a black background and it looks like nothing happens

What about a feature to show / hide the panel(s) with a configurable hot key / keybinding?

And / or a feature to auto-hide on mouseout and show on mouseover (when the mouse is over the miny hidden bar after minimization).

I use a UserScript (YouTube Center Developer) to put the player in fullscreen when scrolling to the top and it seemed that it used to work with Panel Tabs, or that's what I think. Maybe it was part of the extensions as shown in the Gallery:

This is how I see it now. All the extensions were disabled. I know Youtube changes from time to time so that might be one reason

And I am wondering whether extensions can run inside Panel tabs or not. if not, is it possible to implement?

• Make setup experience easier with better UI
• Fix setup not progressing when Chrome is allowed to run in background

Currently the only way is to close the panel and then use Reopen Closed Tab, Cmd+Shift+T.

When a user has several/many extensions, each of them feels obliged to add something to the browser context menu, so having an option to control this behavior is beneficial to anyone who likes to keep the menu tidy and compact, because Chrome lacks a Firefox-like addon interface to customize menus.

See #13.

possibly a chrome issue. Panels can be vertically minimized when docked along the bottom of the primary display, but not in the secondary display (external monitor), where the minimize button triggers regular window minimizing. You'll notice the panel sticks to the bottom when you move it toward the bottom (as well as the edge of the screen), but unlike in primary display where the panels lineup and are sortable from the bottom right.

Currently if options.keepWindowsOpen is disabled and the only tab of some window was panelized, it will be restored as a tab of another opened window.

It'd be reasonable to restore such panel back to a new window with the previously saved size, position and maximized state.

Panels should keep the state of the tab they pop out of so videos or games don't need to restarted. This is a problem when you want to go between tab and panels somewhat frequently.

Does the option to right click a link and open it into a new panel currently exist? If not, I would suggest implementing it!

Right now, if you try to "panel" a system tab (such as chrome://whatever) and it will instantly bork and foobar the entire browser and shuts it down, anything you are doing or had open is GONE.

Sometimes, session restore manages to bring them back but a lot of time, nope. This is not hanging or crashing slowly, this is a FULL ON, HARD KILL, of the browser like it was done by a TaskManager.

1. Why doesn't it handle internal pages (aka chrome://)
2. If it can't do it, then it should catch and prevent it more gracefully, killing the whole browser is way too ridiculous.
3. You stated in the roadmap that you are replacing panels with 2.0 alternative, but the installer as of today still requires you to set the panel flag, so what exactly is being alternated? This is not mimicking panels, it IS panels, can you clarify?

I was hopeful to use this today but given that the primary reason I needed it for is resulting in the browser being killed and losing everything, not keeping this until someone explains to me why its behaving so badly.

When closing a tab - Chrome automatically focuses the last active tab. With the extension when you move a tab to a panel - Chrome focuses the last tab.

Example usage:
-Trying to google some relevant information ( Tab index 3/5 )
-New tab ( Tab index 6/6 ); Google; Pop as a panel ( 5/5 )
-Active tab changes to 5 ( 5/5 ) instead of the last active one ( 3 )

• open site from bookmarks in panel window
• lunch Chrome auto open site in panel window

Sometimes I want panels to behave like system menus (File, Edit etc.) in that blurring them minimises them. Doing email, is a good example.

Other times I want them to stay on top. Youtube is a good example.

There’s a conflict here and I have no simple solution.

Non simple solutions

• something like Chrome’s "Pin tab" – I think people would overlook this
• a "Automatically minimise panels" setting in the browser button popup – offloading the decision to the user

Despite my lack of good suggestions, I thought I should open the issue for discussion.

Which sites would you like to use with Panel Tabs but won’t behave nicely?

• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Twitter
• Fox video player
• CNN video player
• Adult Swim video player
• Wikipedia

Leave a reply below! You can also attach a screen shot.

So that on startup the tabs are restored.

Perhaps only if I’ve checked Chrome’s “Continue where you left off” setting

Like this very page (opening github issue), clicking file attachment does nothing.

FIrst of all, Amazing extension!

I am having problems with a dual monitor setup. basically the panels are allways created in the Right corner of the primary display and if I move it to the external display it will lose the "allways on top".

Dear @lnikkila,

Just a cosmetic issue, yet I wanted to make you aware of it.

Panel Tabs only displays a generic icon in Plank dock on Linux elementaryOS.

Let me know if I can help you with more debug information!

Robert

I have no idea exactly how to reproduce this. After ticking Collapse defocused panels option, I've noticed after some time (like 5 mins) panels will just refuse to auto-collapse. I go back to the options tab in the extension overlay (without changing anything), and immediately all panels will behave as normal. Then after some time again, if I refocus on the panel, it will open, then I click away and it will stay open.

Panels are set to always on top when snapped to the bottom of the screen.

I'd like to be able to turn this off, and when in other locations (snapped to left for example) be able to turn on Always On Top

Remove unnecessary files, minify scripts and assets...

Dear @lnikkila,

I just noticed that a YouTube video does not automatically fit into the tab panel if it previously had been in Theater mode.

I have to manually change it back to default mode to make it fit.

Here is my question.

In Panel Tabs I prefer to have a video in default mode. However, when viewing a video normally, I actually prefer to have the video in Theater mode.

Do you think that both things are mutually compatible?

Thanks!

Robert

1. Snap a panel to the right side of the screen
2. Plugin a monitor with a larger desktop

The panel forgets it was snapped to the right side and ends up buried in the center of the screen instead of being snapped to the right of the monitor.

It would be really helpful if the panel remembered its snapped state and relocated on screen resolution changes

This might be panel restrictions, but it seems if you move the panel out of the bottom dock, it no longer stays on top over other windows.

Is that an option you would accept in a PR?

On El Capitan using Chrome Version 55.0.2861.0 canary (64-bit) the Panels flag is gone.

chrome://flags/#enable-panels is no more.

Clicking the extension button opens a popup window but not the kind that stays always on top (panel tab).

🇯🇵

I’d like to offer a Japanese localisation for Panel Tabs, since a significant number of users are from Japan. Unfortunately I don’t speak Japanese!

Let me know if you’re fluent in both English and Japanese and would like to translate the extension itself and possibly its Chrome Web Store page.