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I know this thread is a bit old, I was going to open a similar suggestion. It would be nice to have a setting for profiles that let's you open a profile in a new tab. Similar to how firefox does Container Tabs. So people could choose either open in new browser instance or in new tab to keep it clean

  • Vlad replied to this.
    2 years later

    currently, there are multiple dock icons for different orion profiles, but this is such an annoying mess for dock management, because if you pin it to the dock, it only pins the specific profile attached to the dock icon instance.

    orion should try to be more like safari, or even arc in the sense that it either:

    opens multiple windows under the same dock icon:

    or

    manages multiple profiles in one window (ignore profile name 💀):

    versions:
    orion 0.99.129-beta (WebKit 619.1.11.111.2)
    macOS 15.1 (24B83)

    I agree but I'm not sure how Alt-Tab would work under this scenario. In Arc, as far as I know, there isn't the idea of having 2 open instances with 2 separate profiles - instead, one open instance has one open profile at any one time. I personally like that behaviour, but I'm not sure how Safari does it.

      Merged 3 posts from Make all orion windows under one instance of orion in the dock.

        Brief Summary
        I would like the devs to consider possibly reworking Orion's profile management system to act like Safari's profile management. I like to have multiple browser profiles active when online. This means that the dock slowly becomes cluttered with many Orion icons w different profile icons. The WebApps on the other hand are fine.

        Details:
        This feature request is best explained by the picture provided. But to put it into words, I would like to remove all active profiles as apps from the dock and consolidate them to the top bar on the window like safari has it.

        End Goal:
        To declutter the dock and make the user experience better for those who have multiple profiles active at a given time.

        Image/Video:

          hungryDev89 Note that in the meantime you can assign different icons to different profiles.

          The approach we took has mutiple advantages as it allows for true sandboxing of data between profiles.

          We are however open to discussion about changing this and are welcoming community feedback.

            hungryDev89 If that change was made would you also expect all the profiles to be merged into a single Orion icon in the ⌘-Tab switcher?

                Hmm... I don't know as much about macOS's frameworks so correct me if Im wrong here, but is it possible to rework it as possibly either a menubar process or even a system process that isn't user facing? The end goal is to declutter but if it means sacrificing the ability to sandbox data then I'd rather keep the current implementation.

                  adamaveray yes I believe so. I use alt-tab due to apples stubbornly flawed tabbing design so I totally forgot about this kind of scenario. If thats the case, I would also like to be able to switch between profiles using the ctrl - Tab feature but again this maybe going out of scope for the original idea here.

                      hungryDev89 I don't think it's technically possible on macOS for an app to present as a single item in the dock while having multiple entries in the ⌘Tab switcher (apps can hide their dock icon but I am fairly sure that also removes them from the ⌘Tab switcher so they become only accessible via clicking, Mission Control, etc - not via the keyboard) so the only options are either the current Orion implementation of each profile as a separate app therefore accessible from anywhere with ⌘Tab, or making profiles separate windows of the one unified Orion app instance therefore accessible with ⌘~ after first activating Orion.

                      Worth keeping in mind that while you might find the macOS ⌘Tab vs ⌘~ window navigation system (stubbornly?) flawed many people – myself included – vastly prefer it to e.g. the Windows approach of no distinction between apps and windows. Similarly I find multiple icons in the dock a benefit not a negative in addition to the functionality Orion's profiles being separate app instances provides including independent toolbar layouts, tab arrangements, app icons, preferences, etc, so whatever approach they choose will inevitably disappoint some people.

                      I guess it's up to the community to decide which approach they prefer to help the Orion team decide whether to make any changes.

                        also to provide some context, on windows, chrome creates a different app icon in the taskbar for every profile

                          I think the current behavior (icon for each profile) is pretty good for my experience, I have no need to right click to open specific profile in Safari (or Chrome).

                          Is there any performance or resource eficiency advantage if this things implemented? If yes, I prefer the performance over the experience.

                          there should be no perf difference

                          • Vlad replied to this.

                            eirk

                            There are multiple benefits to current way of handling profiles:

                            • There is a significant performance benefit to current way of handling profiles. A slow tab/website/extension in one profile does not impact Orion instance running in the other profile as they are two separate apps from the standpoint of the OS task scheduler.

                            • Another direct benefit is that an app crash in one profile does not bring down all other open profiles with it.

                            • Separating profile via apps ensures sandboxing of data between them

                            • You can use native macOS feature such as cmd + tab to switch between profiles

                            This is just some of the main benefits I am sure there are more.

                            Welcoming further thoughts on this topic. Is the dock clutter really the only reason some people dislike this despite all the benefits listed here?

                                a month later

                                Even if Windows offers this possibility, the traditional behavior of applications on MacOS, and Apple's interface guidelines remind us, is to have an application open only once, with a single icon in the Dock. To have multiple instances, just open new windows in the app. This is what Safari 17 does and respects with its profiles feature.
                                I think Orion should take this principle (there are still ways to improve and offer something different from what Safari 17 offers while respecting the principle).

                                There can potentially be a few performance consequences (defining what is meaningful for an Apple Silicon machine), this can protect other profiles if a profile/website/... crashes and allow continued use of Orion (if we have multiple profiles open at this precise moment), but these are generally rare phenomena in our daily use; which in any case does not prevent the crashing of the profile and its relaunch, and there are mechanisms to find our sites/profiles etc. precisely in the event of a crash.

                                The keyboard shortcut command+tab would certainly no longer directly offer the different instances/windows of the profiles but only the Orion application (same principle as for the other macOS applications) but it would still be possible to access the Dock directly via the icon of 'Orion has all open profiles (which Safari 17 offers) :

                                Also, advanced command+tab users are usually already using utilities to enhance this functionality and directly access a window, profiles, etc. (apps like Command-Tab Plus, BetterTouchTool, for example).
                                And Orion's "Session tabs" feature, combined with profiles, I think already answers a large part of the problem of the data sandbox.

                                8 months later

                                Profile management in general could take some cues from Arc. I do like that each profile is its own browser process, however being able to open certain sites/domains in certain profiles to keep things containerized would be great. Facebook in its own profile, Google its own, Microsoft stuff in its own etc ... keeps the tracking to a minimum and lets a set of preferences, favorites etc apply to each.

                                • eirk replied to this.
                                  4 days later
                                  2 months later

                                  I see the discussion has gone back and forth, but I am coming from Brave with different "data-dir" profiles, so that I can Cmd+Tab into different profiles. This would be paramount to keep if profiles get reworked in any way. Otherwise profiles will just be tabs, which will be comingled with other tabs from other profiles, making this hard to tell apart.

                                    5 months later
                                    Merged 15 posts from Rework Profiles to act more like safari's profile management system.