clicks and icons

#1: Unfortunately to my knowledge, there is no way to prevent Chrome from doing this. Sidewise creates a new Chrome window to put the sidebar in and as far as I can tell Chrome gives us no control over specifics such as taskbar button. The real fix is for Chrome team to implement a proper sidebar API that extensions can use.

#2: Planned.

1. Doh! Is there a way to access Win32 functions from Chrome extension, or it's completely sandboxed?

3. I have one more. Can you make ctrl+w not to close your window, but currently visible tab?

1. I believe this is technically possible by publishing a binary-compiled Chrome extension (.crx) file and/or creating an NPAPI plugin (like Flash, Java, etc.) Unfortunately, both methods would require a separate means of installation than from the Chrome Web Store, and Chrome team has intentionally made doing this more difficult to do in the more recent Chrome versions. Also, it would be a pretty significant amount of work for this feature, and would only benefit Windows users. So at present I am waiting for Chrome team to implement a proper sidebar API; they had one about 80% complete earlier this year but then decided to scrap it entirely :( and do not appear to have plans to add it back through 2013 at least. I may go this route eventually, but only if Chrome team takes a real long time to give us a proper sidebar API; there are many other features I think would be more useful overall to focus on for now.

2. Interesting idea, I'll definitely consider it. 

Hey.

If you're Windows user, I believe I've found a solution for #1!

Google for TrayIt! utility, it's free.

Start it. Right click on Sidewise, check Place in System Tray.

Right click on Sidewise, select Edit profile. In profile, check match pattern for title and class, and check 'Hide paplication from taskbar all the time'.

It seems to be working! It also resolves alt-tab problem1

On Windows 7, I still have the alt-tab problem when cycling Chrome/Sidewise are open in the background.

Unfortunately, it only allows for substring matches... therefore, if I have any tab open which contains the text "Sidewise" (for example, this page), then the Chrome window is removed from the taskbar.

Also, alt-tabbing is still a problem for me if I have the Chrome/Sidewise window open.

Nevertheless, nice find.

Hm, I do confirm there is trouble with pages that have 'Sidewise' in the title, but, maybe we could get an option for more unique Sidewise title? :)

Alt-tabbing seems to be working fine at my place (Win8).

My results are similar to Muntoo's.

Regarding pages with 'Sidewise' in the title: it certainly does seem that the only viable option would be to change the sidebar's title to something more unique, given that the TrayIt author has stated that no major development is planned and has not updated the app since 2008. This would be a pretty obscure option, but I will consider adding it in the "advanced" options.

Goran, regarding alt-tabbing: do you have the "keep Sidewise visible" option checked in the options page? That is specifically when I am seeing the alt-tab issue.

Yes, I have checked that option.

In meanwhile, I've found out something - alt-tabbing still has known problems on Win7, but works nicely on Win8.

Ahh that explains it, thanks for that bit of research. Do you think this difference has something to do with the Metro UI?

I doubt that. Metro is not mixed with classic Win32 GUI, nor alt+tab shows Metro windows.