Change logic of "Close panel on losing focus"

[paul1149]

Recently I've had the problem of mentally keeping control of things when many tabs are open, and I decided that using the Window Panel would be better than using the Tab Bar for doing so. The tabs in the tab bar get so small when there are many of them that they are hard to read or click, but the panel is immune to that problem.

I've set the Window Panel to "autoclose Inactive panel" ("upon losing focus", the tool tip says), but was surprised to see it closing as soon as i activated an entry there, with the mouse still hovering. Conversely, other panels remained open until I clicked outside the panel, though I had moved the mouse away. This wasn't the autoclose I had imagined.

Then I realized that the focus that was being lost was from the program's perspective - that is, the main window was now activated, whether through tab activation or mouse click, regardless of mouse position - whereas I was thinking of mouse hover focus.

From my perspective, hover focus would be a much better parameter to guide the panels' closing. On the Window Panel, the panel would stay open until you move the mouse, so you could continue to click on tabs there until you found the one you ultimately want. And the other Panels would not require an extra click to be closed, but simply moving the mouse away from the panel.

A relative small thing, but it offers a couple of advantages that would make panel use much smoother and more intuitive.

Be well.

[Pesala]

@paul1149 You might be better off using a vertical tab bar with the tabs on the left and panels on the right.

[paul1149]

@Pesala said in Change logic of "Close panel on losing focus":

@paul1149 You might be better off using a vertical tab bar with the tabs on the left and panels on the right.

Thank you, @Pesala. In order to be useful the vertical tab bar has to be wide and take up a lot of space. It would be nice if it would minimize on loss of hover. Will consider.

[Pathduck]

@paul1149 Or try to use the Quick Commands (F2) instead, it allows for easy searching through open tabs

[Komposten]

I think this should be added as another option rather than a change to an existing one. I will sometimes have a panel open while scrolling over the main window (e.g. to read an article while I'm also conversing with someone using my Slack web panel). I have "Close panel on losing focus" enabled because that's who I like it, but if it closed as soon as I moved my mouse away I'd find that really annoying.

Also, one might move their mouse away from a panel to grab a file or something and not want the panel to close then either.

So yeah, it's a cool idea but should be done as a new option rather than replace an existing one.

[A Former User]

@Komposten I also think this would be better (though I decided to close it manually some time ago)

• Floating Panel
  • ◯ Close on Demand
  • ◯ Close on Lost Focus
  • Close when Mouse Leaves

[paul1149]

@Komposten said in Change logic of "Close panel on losing focus":

So yeah, it's a cool idea but should be done as a new option rather than replace an existing one.

Or maybe just for the Windows Panel, which already has some dedicated options.

[paul1149]

@Pathduck That's a possibility. One could map a gesture to F2 as well, which I just might do if I can figure out a vacant gesture.

[paul1149]

I'm putting @Pesala 's idea of the vertical tab bar through its paces, and find it pretty workable, though quite visually unattractive. I have it reduced to about 1.25 inches in width, which isn't too bad. It has the additional benefits of getting the tab bar away from the bookmarks bar, so that I don't accidentally trigger tab stacks worth of tab previews all over the place when I overshoot the BM bar; and it provides for more vertical screen space, always a plus. I wish it had a hover-expand function so I could reduce its width further when idle.

[Pesala]

@paul1149 Double-click the Tab Bar separator from the page to reduce it to icons. Hovering the icons should show the Popup Thumbnails. Hide the Tab Previews.

[paul1149]

@Pesala Very interesting. But I find having some of the tab's title easily viewable to be too helpful to give it up. That was the main impetus to my looking for an alternative to the horizontal tab bar.

[LonM]

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