Problem with opening the sidepanel with shortcuts

[Guillaume Leon]

I'm currently developing an extensions based on the sidepanel, I want it to be convenient to open so I created a shortcut command inside my manifest.json

Except that when I execute my shortcut, an error occurs with sidepanel.open() telling me:

Error: `sidePanel.open()` may only be called in response to a user gesture.

I have trouble understand what is a user gesture, since a shortcut should be one ? 

Can anyone tell me if it's an intended behavior or if I'm missing anything (and maybe tell me if it's just not possible to do it through commands).

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Guillaume,

Here's an example of an extension that opens the side panel with a shortcut (link).

If I had to guess, one possible issue is that you might not be calling sidePanel.open() in the same turn of the event loop. For example, if you await any promises or call open in a .then block, your user gesture will have expired by the time you call the API.

Let me know if this helps. If not, it'd be great to see your code.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

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[wOxxOm]

I'd be good to have _execute_side_panel id in commands API so the extensions don't have to declare an otherwise unused service worker.

[Guillaume Leon]

Thanks a lot it works like a charm, I think this is some kind of weird behavior though, it would make sense that the command would keep their context 

[Oliver Dunk]

I'd be good to have _execute_side_panel id in commands API so the extensions don't have to declare an otherwise unused service worker.

Completely agree! I think that would be a good bug if there isn't one already.

I think this is some kind of weird behavior though, it would make sense that the command would keep their context 

I definitely agree that it can be confusing, and I think it's worth thinking about. That said, it can get really hard - if you call a function which then makes an external request that takes 30+ seconds to complete, that probably isn't reasonable to attach to the user gesture. So there's always a point where you have to draw the line, and that can be challenging - not to say that we shouldn't try to make it better :)

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB