Web App window cannot be opened again once closed without quitting (Cmd+W)

joulev

This is about installing websites as Web Apps using Orion on macOS.

Step 1: Install a website as a Web App (Tools > Install this Site as an App)

Step 2: Launch the app. Everything works normally

Step 3: Close the app window (Cmd+W)
Here, the app is not quitted, which is very nice.

Step 4: Click the app icon in the dock to try to reopen that closed window, but the window is not reopened. No matter what I try, I cannot get the window to reopen. I can open a new window but the old window is still there and cannot be opened.

If music was playing in the old window, it continues to play after cmd+W (very very nice :+1🙂, but because the old window cannot be reopened, the only way I can control the music is to quit the app as a whole (cmd+Q) and relaunch it from scratch.

This issue is not applicable to Safari because Safari closes the page itself when Cmd+W is triggered, and if I click on the dock icon, a fresh new page is launched (which is bad).

The current behaviour is near perfection already. I just need the running but closed window to be reopened when you click the app icon in the dock in step 4 above, then everything will be perfect.

Version 0.99.137-beta (WebKit 623.1.8.0.0). Mac 26.0.1 (Build 25A362)

Tahoe (26)

laiz

I understand the behavior you suggest would work quite well for your particular workflow. However, having Orion webapps behave different from other native macOS apps in the sense that clicking the dock icon would reopen a closed window would be somewhat unintuitive.

joulev If music was playing in the old window, it continues to play after cmd+W (very very nice :+1🙂, but because the old window cannot be reopened, the only way I can control the music is to quit the app as a whole (cmd+Q) and relaunch it from scratch.

Overall, this should probably be considered a bug since the behavior is both unexpected and difficult to control for the user.

What are your thoughts on this? Should ⌘W close the webapp at all?

joulev

laiz Yeah it's true that the behaviour of the window continuing to play music even when played fits exactly to my use case but could be a bit counterintuitive in other use cases now that you mentioned it.

Cmd+W closing the web app completely works fine too, that's also the behaviour chosen by a few other browsers that I tested.

In any case, I will be happy with an implementation that ensures if I close a window, that window is either destroyed or recoverable.