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With Orion profiles, it is possible to be only logged in into services that match the profiles' intention.

A "private" profile could be used for one's personal paid <music streaming service> account or to shop on <favourite shopping website>. As on the other hand, the <developer platform service> is only relevant for the "work" related profile.

Mixing those services across profiles (being logged in multiple times with the same account) would undermine the intention of clear separation (exceptions might exist) and should not be the best practise.

To take profiles to the next level, I would like to suggest having an option that enables me to define that certain services (websites) should always be opened in a specified profile.

Example: When configuring that <music streaming service> should open in my private profile, each time I enter the URL, the website will be forcibly opened in my private profile. Preventing of unintentional mixing of services and making the users' life easier.

  • Vlad replied to this.

    • Vlad

    • Best Answerset by Vlad

    Ota Please describe how would the UI/UX for this option work like.

    • Ota replied to this.

        How about using third-party tools like velja? Although I understand the purpose of the suggestion, I don't think a browser should support that option.
        With velja, you can make several routing rules for multiple profiles. Supports both Chromium browsers and Orion.

        • Ota replied to this.

          junukwon7 I am aware of Veljia or choosy. The limitation of these tools is that they only work for visits initiated from third-party apps, e.g. clicking a link in Slack.

          When you are inside Orion, tools like Veljia do not intercept the call. This means you would still open the desired website in the active profile.

          Vlad I will come back when i have gathered a few examples.

                Ota Oh I get it. Just tell vlad that you want a Orion integrated velja since vlad wanted what the uiux would be.

                    Vlad Hey, as posted by @junukwon7 the app Velja does an OK job to manage the rules.

                    The interface should consist of three parts: Rules overview, Rule definition and pattern matching.
                    Besides the interface, there should be a quick way to add a rule. E.g. by right-clicking the URL in the search bar and selecting "Always open in $profile" which would create a domain matching rule.

                    Interface description:

                    Rules overview

                    Overview of all rules that gives a bird's-eye view of what exists.

                    1. Showing the rule name and the profile the rule is assigned too.
                    2. It should be possible to filter rules based on profile or configured session to only see rules that apply to these.

                    Rule definition

                    Interface to create a new rule or to edit an existing one.

                    1. Name of the rule for user-friendly naming.
                    2. Profile (or later on also session) to be used for this rule. This is the profile in which the URL will be opened when the URL matches.

                    Pattern matching

                    A list of patterns, that would trigger the rule (Velja calls these matchers). Most likely a child element of the rule definition.
                    There can be multiple patterns in a rule that are OR chained.

                    1. Sample URL to test your pattern against.
                    2. Pattern style, that defines how to detect if the rule would match.
                      (Domain, Full domain matching including subdomain, Prefix, Contains and Regex)
                    3. Pattern value.
                      Value to match the visited URL against to trigger the rule.

                    Playing together

                    As soon as a rule matches, the given URL will be opened in the configured profile/session. In case the profile is not active, a new window for the profile will be created. If the profile window is not focused, the focus would switch to the appropriate window.

                    Velja example

                    Here is an image from Velja when adding a new rule.

                    I hope this helps.

                    • Vlad replied to this.

                        Ota Thanks for thining it through. We need to simplify we do not have 100 developers like Chrome team.

                        It should probably be a part of global website settings.

                        I could imagine a setting here that says Open in Profile. There is no pattern matching, it works on subdomain basis.

                            10 days later

                            Vlad That makes sense. Would it be possible to have an option that allows selecting domain or subdomain matching?

                            Please consider that in midterm an overview or list of configurations would be helpful. Maybe that is combinable with an overall overview for "website settings": Having a list of domains in a table view and the selected custom options.

                                15 days later

                                I'm currently juggling two GitHub accounts, one personal and one work. The way I have it set up is to use one in Safari and one in Chrome and then use a tool (Hammerspoon) as URL handler that opens URLs clicked in the right browser. This has two drawbacks:

                                1. It only works when links are opened outside the browser, not from links clicked in the browser.
                                2. I have to use two browsers, which is messy

                                It would be awesome if the there was a way to configure URL/regex patterns that opens only certain URLs in the right profile in Orion. Something like github.com/work/* would open in the work profile and anything else in the default (personal) profile.

                                • Vlad replied to this.
                                  10 days later

                                  eproxus Regex is probably too much to handle, our entire website settings uses the subdomain.

                                      2 months later
                                      2 months later

                                      I am also interested in having this feature implemented into Orion as a user of profiles for work and personal browsing. Subdomains would suffice in my use-case.

                                        If you were to create a webapp for discord, you probably don't want external links to stay in the webapp,and you mgith want them to redirect to the main browser instance

                                        Also, if you had a webapp for google docs, u might want all links in any webapp or browser to redirect to the google docs webapp.

                                        this would make it more seamless to switch between webapps and the browser

                                          I'm thinking of how the UI for this could work

                                            8 days later

                                            Interestingly the current behaviour is useful as it avoids difficult UX problems (should the link open in the main Orion instance or in a tab in the webapp?). Solutions like Unite resort to a very complicated system of rules to determine where the link should open.

                                            For me it would be enough to open the link in a main Orion instance or, better yet, in the system default browser so it can trigger a browser picker like Choosy or Velja.

                                              What Unite offers is very complicated, but very extensible and if done correctly, be very seamless and easy switching between the webapps
                                              I'm wondering if something could be done to make it not as complicated, but just as good

                                                For further reference, here's how Unite works. You can select to allow the webapp to browse any link or set up restrictions via whitelisting or blacklisting URLs. If you opt for whitelisting URLs, only those in the list will open links inside the web app, and URLs not matched will open in the default system browser. If you opt for blacklisting/disallowing URLs, the logic reverses.

                                                I believe it to be somewhat confusing, and would prefer something like Choosy's UI so rules are more explicit. The "when this rule applies" list box would have "open inside webapp" or "open in default browser" or something like that as possible actions.

                                                Anyway, this level of refinement seems non trivial and a considerable amount of work to me. Just launching the default browser app would allow me to use Choosy to build more complicated workflows.

                                                  We made a change in current RC, lets discuss if that works. We should keep it simple!