Disappearing Undocked Window

Pretty please - can you do something about this? I simply want an option to keep the undocked window 'on top'. Currently Sidewise is unusable (for me) until this is possible. Is this something you can fix?

Thanks.

Have you tried setting it up so that the popup window is barely visible underneath the main browser window? This way, it takes up little space and you don't need to keep clicking the toolbar button.

Of course, an option to keep it from going out of focus would be useful as well in your case.

Keeping it in focus is the only usable method for me - but you do realise that 'not' keeping it in focus makes the hover preview completely useless? If you have that option ticked, the pop-up vanishes as soon as you move the mouse over it. This is really something that needs fixing - would be massively useful (essential in my view) if you could do it. Maybe the answer is to automatically force keeping the pop-up in focus if un-docked AND hover preview are selected.

My 'quick' solution described in my main reply also works with hover preview and scroll-to-switch, though as I mentioned, the (currently unavoidable) popup disappearing/reappearing effect is a bit unpleasant ;)

Is it possible then to have a 'drop down' from the tool-bar icon rather than a pop-up? That would surely be a way of avoiding the issue and there are other extensions that work like this - Neater Bookmark has an option, for example, 'Pop-up stays open when opening (left clicking) bookmarks'. I can imagine Sidewise working this way. what do you think?

Good idea. I will put it on the todo list. 

Brilliant. Any chance of fast tracking it? :) I'd really love to have Sidewise working for me. Getting snowed under with tabs - just the way I seem to work!!

I will take a crack at it this release cycle and as long as the solution isn't too complicated I'll have it in the next release. I believe it should be pretty straightforward.

That would be great :) 

I think you'll also need a slight change in behaviour, i.e. if the drop down is chosen (rather then than the sidebar) AND hover preview is chosen then the 'new' option for the drop-down to stay open when clicking tabs needs to be forced on (and greyed out to prevent it being turned off). Otherwise, as above, the drop-down will simply do it's disappearing trick as the pop-up currently does. I'll happily test out a 'Beta' if you like - just let me know. Thanks.

I've made a change for the next release which will do at least part of what you ask for here when the sidebar is undocked and you have the "keep sidebar visible" option checked: when you click rows in the sidebar, Sidewise will refocus the sidebar after the focus-switch takes place.

However, the main problem with this solution is that the sidebar popup is not truly an "always on top" window. Thus when clicking on rows in the sidebar, with this solution in place, the popup temporarily disappears (because the main Chrome tab is focused and brought to the top) and then reappears (as the solution's code refocuses the sidebar). Also, if you then click on the actual page, the popup again disappears (goes behind). Which then requires clicking the Sidewise button twice to (close, reopen) the popup.

I am marking this as FIXING while in consideration of possible additional solutions:

- (Windows only) Make the Sidewise Helper AHK script (currently in development) set the Sidewise window to be always-on-top while Chrome is focused; this would be the best-functioning fix but only works on Windows and required running my extra helper program

- Solve the two-click problem to reshow a hidden undocked sidebar: one possibility is to compare the dimensions of the Chrome window(s) and the sidebar to deduce whether the sidebar is partly or completely hidden onscreen, and if it is hidden, then clicking the Sidewise button should just raise the sidebar instead of closing it.

I've made a change for the next release which will do at least part of what you ask for here when the sidebar is undocked and you have the "keep sidebar visible" option checked: when you click rows in the sidebar, Sidewise will refocus the sidebar after the focus-switch takes place.

However, the main problem with this solution is that the sidebar popup is not truly an "always on top" window. Thus when clicking on rows in the sidebar, with this solution in place, the popup temporarily disappears (because the main Chrome tab is focused and brought to the top) and then reappears (as the solution's code refocuses the sidebar). Also, if you then click on the actual page, the popup again disappears (goes behind). Which then requires clicking the Sidewise button twice to (close, reopen) the popup.

I am marking this as FIXING while in consideration of possible additional solutions:

- (Windows only) Make the Sidewise Helper AHK script (currently in development) set the Sidewise window to be always-on-top while Chrome is focused; this would be the best-functioning fix but only works on Windows and requires running my extra helper program

- Solve the two-click problem to reshow a hidden undocked sidebar: one possibility is to compare the dimensions of the Chrome window(s) and the sidebar to deduce whether the sidebar is partly or completely hidden onscreen, and if it is hidden, then clicking the Sidewise button should just raise the sidebar instead of closing it.