Suggestion: Option to open app in a tab

[Abhinav Asthana]

I have been monitoring feedback for the new Chrome app platform and by far the biggest complaint has been that apps open up in a new window. This I believe is due to users instinctively tabbing between websites and apps while getting work done. Now having to switch to a different window affects an existing habit. I am wondering if it would be possible for apps to open up as a separate tab in the future (maybe through a flag). Would be a big plus IMO.

[PhistucK]

(New Packaged) Applications have assumptions regarding their window, like controlling its title bar and similar. Opening them within a tab couples them with the browser and breaks those assumptions.

I personally do not think this is going to work.

☆PhistucK

On Thu, Oct 3, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Abhinav Asthana <rick...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have been monitoring feedback for the new Chrome app platform and by far the biggest complaint has been that apps open up in a new window. This I believe is due to users instinctively tabbing between websites and apps while getting work done. Now having to switch to a different window affects an existing habit. I am wondering if it would be possible for apps to open up as a separate tab in the future (maybe through a flag). Would be a big plus IMO.

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[Abhinav Asthana]

Yep. I agree that apps would be making assumptions like these but having an option for app developers would be handy i.e. tabbed or individual windows. Maybe even a special kind of a tab which is basically an app window pinned to the left of the browser so you can switch to them along with regular tabs. Developers can be told about this option in the Chrome docs. I can understand technical reasons for not doing this (sandboxing) but I feel that if it affects usability this should be considered.

[Neil Bridge]

I agree with you. This should be an option for users.

I will never use a Chrome app that lives outside of the Chrome browser window.

An option to enable packaged apps to render in a Chrome tab might make me consider using them.

I have no interest in running Chrome apps outside of the main Chrome window. This is a terrible feature.

[David Brodbeck]

On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 12:25 AM, PhistucK <phis...@gmail.com> wrote:

(New Packaged) Applications have assumptions regarding their window, like controlling its title bar and similar. Opening them within a tab couples them with the browser and breaks those assumptions.

I personally do not think this is going to work.

Ironically right now it's the other way around -- a chrome app has no control of its title bar, but if you open a tab you can control the tab title by setting the document title.

As I noted in an earlier thread, an app *can* run inside a tab but this is apparently not supported behavior.

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[Steve McMillen]

I and my team use POSTMan REST client a lot.  This app recently changed to a packaged app.  Not having tab support is a significant barrier to using this app because I often have to open multiple tabs to compare one REST response from another as state changes.  Dealing with multiple windows gets much much too complicated!!

I think giving users the option would be ideal.

You say that an app "*can*" run inside a tab - do you mean there is a workaround that can be used to open a packaged app inside a tab now while we wait for Google to decide on this?

Thanks, Steve

[Joe Marini]

Postman has a Web Client version in addition to the Packaged App:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-rest-client/fdmmgilgnpjigdojojpjoooidkmcomcm

-joe

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[Steve McMillen]

Understood. Thanks though.  I still use the web client version - but the current development activity is only in the packaged app.  So the web client is slowly growing old.  Plus, I use new features only in the packged app and the two don't share config (maybe they can't).

[David Brodbeck]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Steve McMillen <stevem...@gmail.com> wrote:

You say that an app "*can*" run inside a tab - do you mean there is a workaround that can be used to open a packaged app inside a tab now while we wait for Google to decide on this?

Steve: Please see the earlier discussion about this here:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-apps/jK1PhdlDvAQ/EZ11_Sj23loJ

That's the thread I was referencing.

[cheater00 cheater00]

Re excuses why apps can't be opened in tabs. Someone said the reason is because the app makes assumptions about being able to control the title bar.

I really truly don't care about those assumptions. Give me tabs. If the Holy Covenant of Title Bar is broken I really don't care either way. Having stuff in windows on its own is really annoying. So I have one window with whatsapp, facebook, twitter, telegram, 3x gmail, google groups, and a couple forums, AND THEN a new window with just signal. This sucks.

[generalg]

I found a very simple solution to this problem that worked for my purposes. 

Go ahead and build your Chrome App using the Chrome App Builder Tool. Once exported, locate the auto-generated "background_main.js" and replace EVERYTHING in it with the following code:

'use strict';

chrome.app.runtime.onLaunched.addListener(function() {
    window.open("https://google.com/");
});

you can replace "google.com" with a link of your choosing. Now, zip up the app with the updated background_main.js, upload it to your dev dashboard, and it will work exactly the same as the auto-generated app except that it will open a new tab within your chrome browser instead of opening that silly dedicated window.

For a bit more detail, check out the link where I pulled that code from: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22678489/chrome-app-open-link-in-a-new-tab